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| lesser is me more or less | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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2003 Insurance Value 2000 Euros |
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lesser is me more or less features the artist Tanya Ury to the right of the picture, sitting in three-quarter view. Digitally incorporated into the photograph and facing her to the left, is the German Impressionist Lesser Ury, Tanya Ury's great-grand uncle, in a reproduction of his ‘Selbstportät mit Dunklem Hut’ (Self-portrait with dark hat, 1914, 64 x 40 cm). At the time, Lesser Ury was 53 years old and at the height of his powers. In this double portrait, the two Urys are more or less the same age, Tanya dresses and poses similarly to Lesser and mimics his facial expression. At the centre of lesser is me more or less, conjoining the two picture halves, is the representation of a scar and human scar tissue. Further double portraits in this series are: Lesser Ury's name was established in the 1880's with his images of Berlin street scenes that depicted a city undergoing the transformation to Modernity. Ury was Jewish and a believer. The paintings of biblical themes are not so well known. It was his good fortune that he died in 1931; he was spared witnessing the downfall of Germany and the annihilation of the Jewish people. After his death, the fate of his oeuvre was unsure; it was declared 'entartet' (degenerate) by the Nazis and many works were destroyed. A large amount was however, preserved by those private collectors who hid his works or emigrated, taking artworks with them to England, the USA and Israel. In the 1930's Tanya Ury's parents fled Nazi Germany to England, where she was born and lived, until she moved to Germany to practise art in 1993. After the war, the art of Lesser Ury was largely forgotten. Thanks to three retrospectives in Berlin (1995 and 2002 in the Käthe-Kollwitz Museum, and 2002 in the Centrum Judaicum) Tanya Ury was able to acquaint herself with a collection of Lesser Ury's work that had been gathered together from many sources abroad. In the 89 years that separate the two, pictured Ury's, two world wars have occurred; Germany was divided and has again been reunited. Berlin is now experiencing a rebirth and expansion as it did during the Fin de Siècle of the 19th century; as a consequence, Lesser Ury's Berlin cityscapes are once more much in demand. Tentatively and in recent years, Jewish artists have been returning to live and work in Germany. Whether the reanimation of a Jewish culture in Germany is possible now, and whether this attempt is Frankensteinian and bound to fail, are questions that lesser is me more or less pose. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx*** Ury has also created other artworks that might be considered visual poetry. Moving Message 1992, incorporates an LED sign displaying the words: you are why; wrestlewithyourangel 2001, is a neon sign produced together with the neon sign neonazi 2001; a further double portrait or else 2007, refers to the German writer Else Ury. The title of a third photo-portrait Beelzebularin 2005 reveals itself to be an anagram of the biblical Bezalel Ben Uri. half dimensional - semi detached 2010 combines the first of the half dimensional poems with the photograph semi detached. Concrete poetry in the series: femiNINIty – femininiation 1984 & 2011 |
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