Munich
The naked Flatz – a total work of art instead of a skin auction
Curator Bernhart Schwenk in the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich at the opening of the exhibition “Flatz. Something Wrong with Physical Sculpture”. photo
© Felix Hörhager/dpa
Flatz actually wanted to auction off his tattooed skin. The auction collapsed. But there is still money. In the Pinakothek der Moderne, the Munich artist presents himself as a total work of art – naked.
A person as a work of art: The performance artist Flatz actually wanted to auction off his skin and tattoos on Thursday evening, redeemable after his death. He presented himself naked on stage, complete with tattoos, to around 1,000 guests who came to the Pinakothek der Moderne in the Pinakothek der Moderne for the charity auction “To Risk One’s Own Skin” at the Christies auction house had streamed into Munich.
But things turned out differently. “The announced auction will not take place,” said the general director of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, Bernhard Maaz, to the astonished audience. “A few hours ago, a collector decided to purchase the entire work entitled ‘Carrying the Skin to Market’ en bloc.”
“The amount is none of your business”
Details were not revealed. Just this much: An internationally active collector from Switzerland wanted to preserve the tattoos as an undivided group of works, the Pinakothek announced. How much does this cost the buyer? “The amount is none of your business,” Flatz replies. “But it was an offer where I couldn’t say no, where no one would have said no.” The money will go, among other things, to the non-profit Flatz Foundation, which supports young artists.
And something else is important to the Austrian-born Vorarlberg: “I’m glad that the entire work ends up with a collector and therefore stays together and can be exhibited together again.” The 71-year-old has had 13 tattoos so far. He promised one of them to his son, the 12 others went to the collector, who received life-size photographs until the artist’s death. When Flatz dies, parts of his skin will be removed from his body, prepared and inserted into the photos behind glass – all specified in a will.
Flatz as a living work of art
But the Munich resident himself is still the total work of art – and presents himself to the audience in the Pinakothek as such. He enters the stage in a black kimono, loosens his red belt and finally stands naked. For minutes he remains motionless on a disk that slowly rotates and shows him off from all sides. “Action instead of auction,” comments the art historian Maaz and praises Flatz as a motor of artistic freedom who pushed the boundaries of fine art ever further.
The retrospective “Something Wrong with Physical Sculpture” shows how far the artist is willing to go. Until May 5th, the Pinakothek der Moderne presents works such as photos, installations and performances. For example, the installation “Bodycheck” at Documenta IX in Kassel in 1992: 90 heavy punching bags hang from the ceiling, through which visitors literally have to fight their way. There are also motorcycles decorated with rhinestones, as well as a video from 1990: in a destroyed synagogue in Tbilisi, Georgia, Flatz dangles from the ceiling on a rope. He swings back and forth like a bell handle and bangs against two huge metal plates until he falls unconscious.
Against the instrumentalization of art
Exhibition curator Bernhart Schwenk appreciates the artist’s courage to disturb and disturb. Art is being increasingly taken over by commerce, by capital, by social and political trends. “This is dangerous,” warns Schwenk. “Because we know from history that social systems in which art has been exploited or banned have no future or a future in which none of us want to live.”
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