"Mauer IV, Element plus 25, HANDS OFF CUBA" oil painting by Jens Lorenzen

Object number2020.019.0002

Date2015

ClassificationsArt

Artist Jens Lorenzen

ObjectArtwork

Credit LineMartina Hillenkamp Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions40 × 28 in. (101.6 × 71.1 cm)

Terms

Collections

DescriptionOil painting on canvas by German artist Jens Lorenzen titled "Mauer IV, Element plus 25, HANDS OFF CUBA", dated 2015. This oil painting is part of a larger series called "Mauer IV" and mimics the look of a collage piece. "Mauer" means "wall" in German, and it relates directly to the Berlin Wall of the artist's childhood in Germany during the Cold War. The representational paintings of this series depict antique posters and handbills plastered haphazardly together on a continuous imaginary wall, are they are painted with the illusion of collage, suggesting time-worn layers peeling away to reveal the older layers underneath. Lorenzen describes his process as "looking for the story behind the story." When hanging together, each painting flows thematically into the previous and following paintings, allowing the series to be read as one long mural, subtly changing its motifs and meanings as each work is viewed. The artist's iconic text and imagery merge politics with Pop Art, and modern advertising with ancient Italian frescoes, contrasting the past and the future, the hidden and the exposed. Kennedy appears as a recurring image in many of the Mauer paintings. Each image in the series is called an element, and he numbers each painting separately. He started at zero, with the paintings to the right assigned positive numbers and the paintings to the left assigned negative numbers. The Kennedy images started at plus 10 or 12, but he is now at plus 40. At The Sixth Floor Museum, we have numbers 24, 25, 33 and 34 in the Mauer series. In this particular painting, "Element plus 25, Hands Off Cuba," book boxes from the Texas School Book Depository, the Texas Theater sign, a Hands Off Cuba handbill, a newspaper headline featuring Kennedy's policies related to the Soviet Union, and the iconic Hertz sign in the upper left corner, which continues from number 24, positions the viewer visually at the site of the Kennedy assassination and in the midst of the assassination story. The artist researched materials in The Sixth Floor Museum’s permanent collection as inspiration for some of the images he used in these paintings.

Curatorial Commentary

Exhibit Label: Born in Schleswig, West Germany, Lorenzen first studied as a journeyman carpenter before transferring to the University of Fine Arts, Braunschweig. When he was 16, Lorenzen spent a year as an exchange student in Cleveland, Ohio. It was a transformative experience, leading to a lifelong interest in Pop Art and American icons such as President Kennedy. As an artist, Lorenzen is interested in the 1960s because that was a time of looking forward and in Kennedy as a figure in American pop culture. He has painted a series called Mauer (The Wall) which includes more than 40 individual paintings, that incorporate his interests in history and iconography. Over the past decades he has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout Germany, the US, Mexico and Hong Kong. (Text from Special exhibit, "Art Reframes History," on view on the Museum's seventh floor from September 9, 2020 through May 9, 2021)

Curatorial Commentary

Inspiration for "Mauer IV, Element plus 24" and "Element plus 25" came in part from a visit the artist made to The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in 2014. As he explained in his 2017 oral history, "When my wife and I visited the Museum in 2014, I took pictures of the cardboard boxes behind which Oswald hid. And on them, it says 'Books: Building for Today.' And then, it was a close step to the Texas School Book Depository sign. I'm not investigating anything. I'm not looking for the truth.... It's not a question of right or wrong on my paintings. I'm just playing with associations. And when I have a sign saying 'book,' I can add book to it. It's like a puzzle where things fit together." -- Stephen Fagin, Curator

Curatorial Commentary

A virtual conversation with Jens Lorenzen, recorded in September 2020, is part of the Museum's "Interrogating Art" virtual series to support the special exhibit "Art Reframes History." The full program may be viewed on the Museum's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXVmNou0qys. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator

Curatorial Commentary

This object was part of the Fragments special installation on the Museum's 7th floor, on view from November 3, 2021 through July 3, 2022.