room for humour

Manfred Hürlimann, here next to his man-murdering Lulu, provides characters and scenes from the world of theatre with sometimes ironic comments that have congealed into acrylic works. In 2005, the 62-year-old draftsman and painter from Switzerland was awarded the 1st prize at the annual art competition of the Nürnberger Nachrichten. Photo: Hans-Joachim Winkler

FÜRTH - Manfred Hürlimann has no reservations. The 2005 NN art award winner works like Giotto on sacred things, like Picasso captures scenes in passing. He paints figuratively, narrating and likes to take a satirical approach.

The works that he is currently exhibiting in the Stadttheater often drift into fairy-tale-like acrylic on canvas, playing with narrative elements. However, it happens rather coolly and with a clear overview, cheerful Chagall colours are missing. Although he was also looking for proximity to the theatre - just like Hürlimann.

Born in Switzerland in 1958, he has dealt thoroughly with the world of the stage. The result is dramaturgical comments or stage directions as to how the piece should be interpreted. His Medea, for example, is sublime in its despair, dominant through its pain. Hürlimann brought her to the screen, naked and yet regal.

King Lear is desperately trapped in a cruel universe that no longer offers any salvation. We encounter Wedekind's Lulu naked with a pistol, tempting and dangerous at the same time. Hamlet appears as a bagged man with a skull, Papageno as a weird owl with a panpipe. Beethoven in the orchestra rehearsal lets the baton fly.

Yes, everything that the educated citizen knows and likes is put to the test by fire. In addition, there are the loving poets Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, who could never become a couple in their life and only related to each other in their poems. Hürlimann lets a rose float between them, their gaze directed away from each other to the side.

"We say dark things to each other" is the name of a Celan poem about this unfulfilled love: this is how the painter also called two works. Once they stand there wrapped around day and night and entangled with ribbons, then he seems to grow out of her and pull her towards him while the male figure turns away and the female suffers.

And then there are the ironic comments on the theatre audience, there is blasphemy in the box, the break scene could just as easily happen in any theatre. The love dance that Hürlimann's putti dance can be found in many temples of the Muses. And is never free from the suspicion of kitsch.

Hürlimann doesn't just seem to hear theatrical sounds, to see the colours and shapes of the stage, to hear the text and the plot - with him everything grows together into an inner image that takes shape on the outside.