04 Jan Carlo Cazals – An Artist and His Demons
Prologue
Man is also just an animal, especially a predator. Fear Homo Sapiens. The painter and human being Carlo Cazals has succumbed to this realization, which can be understood by looking at the history and present of our species – and the associated disappointments – with a sarcastic look outwards and not without fear inwards…
In this respect, his pictures are the pictures of a sufferer. They are nevertheless necessary for him so that he does not fall into complete depression and only remains with us in this way – so it is fortunate that he can express himself! And he has been doing this for decades in a way that could be called manic: in permanent work on paper, cardboard or wood, drawing and painting, as if it were a matter of survival. Which is true. The work itself had already become almost unmanageable more than ten years ago when I first visited C. C. in Parchim, the drawings measured themselves in hundredweights, everything else piled up on top of each other in all rooms to form an unmanageable, barely accessible chaos. I capitulated to this at the time. Seeing well and knowing well that it would be worthwhile, I left him with the wish that he might find other people or an institution who would want to and could transfer his astonishing work into “orderly conditions” so that it would become and remain visible to the art world. The miracle should happen (see addendum page 50).
The exhibition and catalogue document the intention to be up-to-date – which means that mainly only works from the last two years or so are shown, especially drawings, but also a certain number of pictures that recycle a past Mecklenburg election campaign by transforming superficial messages of former posters into subtle artistic expressions. But see for yourself…
Image world, means of expression and personality
In the following, I will mainly refer to the graphic work of Carlo Cazals, his works on paper, because I see the special, very individual strength and peculiarity of his pictorial language most concisely and subtly executed there.
Even with a view to the early period of stylistic experimentation in the 70s and 80s, his pictures clearly show his strong graphic talent, as well as his desire for the human figure as an object and main means of expression. So not the colorful portrait painting and the large format with large areas and figures, which he naturally dreamed of (and dreams of), but the art of storytelling with the free-swinging line on small and large sheets has brought him to the present as an extraordinary designer of human conditions and abysses, including his own.
The characteristic of these drawings, which has been ongoing and developing for about 20 years, is shown in several conspicuous features: Firstly, we no longer have, or only rarely, the “pure” human figure and individual parts of its body – in often almost inextricable line entanglements, animal ones have been added, and hybrid creatures of a fantastic to gruesome kind populate the surface, extremities such as feet, claws, beaks play a major role again and again. This often creates threatening to caricaturedly witty-looking, nest-like accumulations or tower-like rising figurations – undoubtedly pronounced surreal image worlds and figures, within which the figure-in-figure drawing is always noticeable as a very special stylistic peculiarity.
Secondly, these pictures do not seem or are not intentionally developed, Carlo Cazals does not pursue a plan when drawing, even if he has a reason for doing so. The lines flow out of him onto the surface, so to speak, like amorphous ornaments, forming shapes that we then perceive as figures or parts of them. But they do not form a pictorial space in the sense of a space for action, they do not play a theater that could be retold as a story. Here lies the idiosyncrasy of the very special aesthetic of an image world that can gain the same lightness in viewing (if you get involved) with which the artist’s hand obviously guided the pen over the paper. (“Ghosts of the Night”)
Thirdly, this lightness is just as clearly in contrast to the theme, which has remained
is – man and society including himself – which is the difficult thing for C. C., because this is where the “demons” live for him. Which he, as I see it, successfully fights with “beautiful” drawing, as long as the lines flow. But at the same time he is waging his lonely battle against his own disappointment and suffered frustrations, which also want to “get out” – which since the 90s has increasingly been in the form of verbal outbursts next to the drawn, often without any apparent content-related reference to it, on the free paper surfaces urges.
There we usually get to read drastic statements from him on a wide variety of topics, oscillating between the most personal experiences and abstract perception of the world. Ancient and modern philosophers, poets and artists are also used in quotations, of course to support the expression of their own thinking, which is often emphasized by Latin sayings, such as ad aspera ad astra for example (approximately “through rough paths one reaches the stars”), with which he equally characterizes his path as an artist, who as an individualist per se or a “genius” mostly unrecognized during his lifetime does not have it easy.
All in all, it can be stated that, if you get involved with the many things written on his sheets, you are led to the dark side of a personality where there is little comforting to discover, in contrast to the drawn. We learn of a person who has distanced himself from society, consciously withdraws from it and sees and formulates his reasons for doing so. And not only that, he has to a certain extent broken the staff over his own gender when he states for himself that “the NEW HUMAN from the test tube EARTH has become an ice-cold killing machine” from the “fighting and cunning species”, mainly equipped with a “procreation machine in particularly strong execution”. So there is talk of despair. But we, the viewers, do not have to get to know this catastrophic world of the artist, we do not necessarily have to read these outbursts and thus remain at a “harmless” distance from it. Or should we perhaps do that after all – and accept the encounter with the work of Carlo Cazals as a challenge, as a walk between extremes, between love and violence, genius and madness? “To get involved in it is the key to his art, one looks as through a window at a world that one does not have to enter oneself, but in which a person lives in (ultimately) peaceful harmony with his demons” – Carsten Kremke recently said in a conversation (see addendum page 50). An encouragement that I would like to pass on.
The image of the woman between demon and Madonna and other dark and light visions
1. The beautiful feet
They can also be found again in this exhibition, the pictures of his always most important themes, with the all-dominating figure of the woman in the center, which was and is not exactly rare in painting. But that often only their feet are in focus as a desire to be designed, as with Carlo Cazals, should be regarded as a unique selling point in this form. Almost driven to the top in a kind of apotheosis and formally monumentalized, this appears in a group of pictures that were created last year on the former election campaign posters mentioned at the beginning. The plastic surfaces with their meeting of smoothness and softness seem to have forced the painterly and the more color here, and so very unusual, powerfully grotesque “portraits” have emerged in a new way. “I just generally like beautiful women’s feet” – so his laconic comment on this preference, which, as can be seen, includes the whole legs and even just shoes.
2. The bright and lively:
But with these works, another, generally important and typical feature in the artist’s pictorial language is also very clearly demonstrated: Cazals very often “places” his art figures on pedestals, stools, tables or platforms that are often only indicated with a few strokes. Formally, this is usually a very understandable necessity, the figurations need support in the square, thus find a pictorial space, but it also opens up a spiritual dimension in the sense of an auratic elevation or delimitation, as the pedestal creates for a sculpture in an exhibition or especially in a public space. This can also be seen very well in many drawings, e.g. in study No. 48 for the “New Man” from 2016, which, by the way, in its floral Art Nouveau liveliness and loose coloring, is one of a group of drawings that can almost be described as cheerful, which should by no means be overlooked with regard to the dominance of the rather dark visions in the artist’s work (see also sheet 24 and sheets 25, 31 and 37 with the Roman “pedestal gods”).
3. The dark visions:
Pedestals also play a role in study 40 for the “New Man”, on which three feminine figures and another are placed and also seem to hang “on the ropes of the sky” like marionettes or battered artists – a work in which C. C. very clearly questions life as a circus possibly controlled by a higher power – he has not forgotten the exit (as a circus should have), nor has he ignored the statement ignorabimus, that “we will never know”… . This example reveals in the typical way of the interplay between drawn and written very vividly the character of his way of working as a tormenting self-talk that does not exclude thinking about “God and the world”. But often he leads this, even if he likes to quote Nietzsche, then but quite with himself and his very personal demons, which rise from the biography, from dreams anyway, also those that concern the body with burden, lust, illness, loss, aging…
In this way, self-portraits are created in the broader sense, such as with the ambiguous sheet “No wonder he doesn’t sell anything” (2016) or also the quite frequent “normal” self-portraits that do without text. Experiences and feelings of being misunderstood with regard to his artistic work belong to it and also their economic lack of success are always urging for alienation, as for example in the sheet “In memoriam – Caspar David Friedrich”, whose fate he lets rise before him and us in a parable. The same applies to the problem areas of individual and mass or genius and philistine, which drive him in numerous works and urge beyond drawing to many drastic verbal outbursts. And then there are a number of sheets, such as “Pithecanthropus” or “The Obscurant”, whose figures really seem to have escaped from a cabinet of the strangest kind… .
4. Demon and Madonna:
Carlo Cazals once commented very openly on the subject of WOMAN: “The fear of the immense charms of women haunted me in early childhood. … Ascetically I avoided artist parties… and for fear of not being able to cope with my impending work, I avoided women.” Or: “The withdrawal of women with all its consequences and demonic spreads created an unbearable space”. At this point, it should be noted that he originally would have liked to become a violin maker (which he was talked out of by the authorities) and then, because he was equipped with the corresponding talent, began a career as an opera singer (dramatic tenor), so he not only wanted to become a great painter (therefore the artist name – as Udo Klein his appearance on the stage would have been counterproductive, so to speak). The pressure to perform was immense – and so understandably the queen arose in the Olympus of his demons. Which, however, had not prevented him from marrying (even if to divorce again) and to care for his teacher, who was highly revered by him beyond her death, for years, as later his mother also. Especially in the 80s he lived “under the most dramatic conditions”. He was saved by Inge, the woman with the beautiful feet and the good soprano voice, who still stands by his side today. “I owe her a lot. Now she protects my art,” Carlo Cazals himself once said. Today she protects him above all, others are now fortunately taking care of his art.
Such a background naturally not only makes the many curvaceous pictures with the central subject of women more plausible, but also explains the whole wealth of facets of subtle erotic figures and allusions in his body landscapes, where it is of course not just about feet. But they are nevertheless happy to turn into the claws of cunning birds of prey, and the beaks can also be found. We clearly see on the one hand his fascination Femina, preferably in puris naturalibus, but the artist not only enjoys them, but also seems to fear them – “the domination of the world by the female”. A good example that combines both is the sheet “Graces”, where “a poor little” creature and an elderly man’s head are courted by these goddesses of grace. The sheet “Nightly Ghosts” speaks a similar language and also the “Exorbitant pregnant beauty” shows more than the words suggest. It should not be overlooked and kept silent at this point that Carlo Cazals occasionally actually painted Madonna pictures (in the sense of Christian iconography) and others of the “simple” and sincere enthusiasm or adoration of the feminine, as in his St. Pauli studies earlier or some others of today.
Epilogue
Carlo Cazals describes himself as the producer of a “curious irrationalism”, which is what he means by his style and at the same time his philosophical self-location. I have my difficulties with the assignment of the work of contemporary artists to old or new isms, because it restricts our thinking and feeling to drawers, and the re-opening of such is not very helpful either. However, this pair of terms justifies in a thoroughly accurate way the essential characteristics of his artistic expression – he does not work rationally from the mind, but actually guided by his feelings and inner states that are currently driving him when he sits with pens, brushes and colors in front of his squares. And the results are then in fact very strange or peculiar and often in a bewilderingly idiosyncratic way – all usually indispensable features of good art – especially in the age of global dangers for the preservation of actual individuality as a necessary starting point for it. His pictures remain exciting for the curious and always pose riddles – whether with or without titles and other written ingredients. One can certainly like them (I especially like those that do without the latter), even if they spread the inferno of losses and pain – but better still the pure poetry of form and color, now and then even the rogue. The practiced eye finds the fun or the joy in tracing the lines and sparse color accentuation and how these form into the most bizarre figures or turbulent sceneries from another world, as only Carlo Cazals knows them. They are his demons and visions and they enrich our universe. May this our knowledge and this exhibition be an encouragement to him.
Addendum
This exhibition for the artist’s 70th birthday here in our gallery was requested by Inge Klein, the wife of Carlo Cazals, in a phone call at the end of 2016 – as she had already ensured 10 years earlier that I showed his pictures in Rehna at the time. She could, since I showed myself very hesitant in memory of difficult circumstances and to encourage me, refer to the place Garwitz with a certain pride in her voice.
In the past year, I got to know the extremely versatile and committed entrepreneurial couple Britta and Carsten Kremke from this town near Parchim, who have managed in the most astonishing way to make my wish expressed at that time a reality (see Prologue) – miracles do still happen: Not only did the two buy several Carlo Cazals paintings because they had simply and utterly fallen in love with their artistic peculiarities, but in recent years they have taken almost the entire oeuvre of the painter and draftsman into their care, and that with an unheard-of personal, technical and, of course, financial effort – but above all with great and lasting enthusiasm! They now also operate under the name Werkeverwaltung Carlo Cazals (Carlo Cazals Oeuvre Management), have transformed their office building into a museum, so to speak – in the spacious hallway and in all other rooms, his paintings hang closely side by side, specially framed, so that they and all employees and visitors can always see them. The drawings rest neatly arranged in several graphic cabinets and folders, and further paintings are in shelves as well, with a tendency to increase, of course. But that’s not all: The Kremkes have created a website for Carlo Cazals and put it online, brought about his membership in the Künstlerbund Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Artists’ Association of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern), organize exhibitions in other locations with the fund, such as in Kühlungsborn in 2015 or in Hamburg in 2016, and published appealing catalogs for these. This year, too, and especially on the occasion of the artist’s 70th birthday, a great deal is in the works, not only this catalog and the exhibition in our gallery, in the KUNSTRAUM TESTORF, which, however, would not have come about without the described prerequisites and the productive partnership with the Garwitzers. We hope that it will prove to be a worthwhile joint project for all those interested in art.
Ulrich Rudolph, Art Historian, Testorf
