Wolfgang Temmel
Incomplete Past, 2018
Print and acrylic on canvas, photo print, both framed
62 x 80 cm, 58 x 47.5 cm
donation of the artist to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška (KGLU), 2019
This installation by Wolfgang Temmel presents two framed images. One is a reproduction of a painting by John Emms, “Two Hounds in a Landscape”, and the second is a portrait of Josip Broz Tito, former political leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Both were often reproduced and widely distributed. The realistic painting of two dogs was and is a very popular image, and can still be bought as a poster today. Until early 1990, Tito’s portrait hung in nearly every public space in former Yugoslavia and represents an element in the iconography of the past system.
Temmel decided to intervene in Emms’s image and painted an UFO in the upper section. The UFO is almost indiscernible at first and then seems to be part of the painting. Exactly how the two images were to be installed in the space was determined in advance. They had to be positioned in the corner: to the observer’s left is the reproduction of Emms’s painting and to the right the portrait of Tito, whose gaze is directed towards the painting. Confronting these two images with each other opens up a specific reading of the work. We are aware that Tito, who in his lifetime was one of the most important socialist leaders, was also a passionate hunter. His lifestyle was quite glamourous, as can be deducted from the many biographies and images that are still a part of today’s popular history. Emms’s painting presents a vision of the English countryside and hunting dogs, such as mostly belonged to the upper social class. The painted UFO represents a foreign element in the reproduction of “Two Hounds in a Landscape”, an intruder in the idyllic countryside, and leads to the thought that neither of the images represents anything real, that both images are just ideas and at the same time stand for something incomplete. On the one hand, we have the ideal countryside and yet the hunting dogs are reminiscent of something violent, of a killing, a fight. Tito’s portrait on the other wall reminds us of the lost ideals of socialism, which aimed at building a better society. On a certain level, both images are science fiction.
Andrea Hribernik, Director of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška(KGLU)