When the graphic artist, illustrator and engraver Stephan Klenner-Otto talks about his hometown, Kulmbach in Upper Franconia, “sleepy” is one of the more polite adjectives he uses. He has passed judgement visually in works such as Flying Bratwursts over Kulmbach (Die fliegenden Bratwürste über Kulmbach), which illustrates a perception of culture that does not reach beyond bratwursts and locally brewed beer. The town is recognizable through the accurate representation of the local landmarks the Plassenburg Castle and the gothic Church of St. Peter. The piercing blue eye is an insider reference to a local civic dignitary.
Pen Drawing, painted in watercolours on water colour cardboard
56 x 34cm
Klenner-Otto’s artistic apprenticeship took place in this bourgeois/philistine (depending on your point of view) environment, under the aegis of graphic artist, illustrator and painter Caspar Walter Rauh (1912-1983). Rauh’s work is usually linked with the genre of Fantastic Realism; his surreal worlds contain hybrid creatures – part human, part animal, part flora and fauna – and structures drawn in minute detail, which reflect both the trauma of war and escape routes into a world of the imagination.[1] Alongside his fantastical landscapes, Rauh illustrated works by German Romantic authors such as E.T.A. Hoffmann and Jean Paul, as well as Edgar Allan Poe’s horror stories and children’s fairy tales.[2] Klenner-Otto worked with Rauh between 1979 and 1982, after which, inspired by his teacher’s attention to detail and the range of his subjects from the humorous to the disturbing, he made the decision to become a professional draughtsman and engraver. In works such as The Flying Bratwursts he pays homage to Rauh with the motif of the snail shell, a symbol commonly interpreted to represent a house, home or refuge, with added connotations of retreating into one’s shell, and which for Rauh expressed the experience of homelessness, rootlessness, social withdrawal, self-preoccupation and introversion.[3] It was this inward path that could save the artist from madness induced by the traumas of the outside world in the mid-20th century. Simultaneously, the snail shell symbolised temporality and transience for Rauh, by linking the present with a prehistoric past.[4]
Also inspired by Rauh, and another recurring element in Klenner-Otto’s visual landscapes, are the flying objects, here a bratwurst transporting a snail shell, and the staring disembodied eye. Flying houses, often in the shape of fish, other animals, plants and ships, were a further representation for Rauh of a refuge, which, by its very nature, made clear how difficult it was to reach any safe shelter.[5] For Klenner-Otto they express the possibilities of psychical activity from a position of a seemingly fixed physical situation: a flight of fancy that escapes all earthly ties. As an example, Klenner-Otto points to E.T.A. Hoffmann continuing his creative writing when restricted by his bourgeois existence, and even when he was bedridden at the end of his life.
Eyes in Rauh’s work are very often dislocated from a disintegrating face, or they are autonomous structures, alienated and alienating in their grotesque anatomy, directed towards the viewer without conveying the sense of watching, thus rendering the act of seeing at best problematical and at worst impossible. This has been interpreted as a reflection of the spatial constellation of Rauh’s landscapes, which themselves do not offer a fixed perspective of the world they present.[6] Klenner-Otto’s eye motifs often indicate the outward manifestation of the inner self. A personal and preeminent characteristic shared by the two artists, which creates one further link between their oeuvres, is an all-pervasive, quirky and self-deprecating sense of irony.
Klenner-Otto has become a well-known artist in his own right whose reputation extends far beyond Franconia and Germany. He has held exhibitions from 1976 onwards, internationally most notably on Jean Paul and Richard Wagner’s Ring. He has won many prizes for his art, including in 1999 the Kulturpreis des Landkreises Kulmbach, in 2015 the Kulturpreis der Oberfrankenstiftung, and most recently, in July 2021, he was awarded the Bayreuther Kulturpreis. Klenner-Otto works with mixed media, using pencil and coloured pencil, pen, watercolours and red chalk with white highlights. The main technical element in his pictures is shading, in particular cross-hatching, that is, closely spaced parallel lines, which render outlines far less important as a structuring element. His signature medium is that of etching, which he does without sketch or outline; on copper, to create fine lines, or on zinc to achieve irregularity and more colour. For his drawings, he uses Ingres paper as his canvas, but also paper from the 18th and early 19th century, such as endpaper from old books, book covers and packing paper.[7]
Klenner-Otto’s artworks are characterized by a desire to bring out beauty in small details. He creates bizarre and extreme situations, underlying the fantastic and grotesque with cryptic humour and powerful realism, which is always underpinned by romantic imagination.[8] For example, in his 2005 work Above the Ground (Über dem Land). Rauh’s influence is detected in the flying ship and snail shell.[9] The ship in the foreground has snail shells built into its structure, with one of them providing one of the ropes which could be used to anchor the ship to the ground, but which are now trailing freely. Also floating free is a ladder, which one might expect to use to gain access to the ship from the ground, however it is stretching upwards, away from the ship towards the mast, the moon and the sky, and thus it presents a route to even higher levels of flight. The moon, a stock romantic motif which recurs in Klenner-Otto’s works, is personified as a venerable, whiskered male, driving the ship onwards with his breath while admiring his female counterpart, the serene and youthful crescent moon, who is bright like the sun, exudes a sense of contentment and enjoyment, and whose gaze looks upwards, beyond the toiling old man (looking backwards not forwards, however) and seemingly at nothing in particular; just enjoying the breeze. Unlike the male powerhouse, who hangs freely in the sky, she is tied to the mast, and therefore her fate is inextricably linked with that of the ship, as one might expect of a young female who has not yet left the security of a home environment, and indeed may never be allowed to. In the background is a further vessel, this time a flying snail shell that appears to be being carried on a bird’s back. The snail ship is flying either in the opposite direction, or both are circling the town below. Neither ship has visible occupants who might steer a course. For Klenner-Otto the ill-matched lunar yin and yang both imply and call into question a romantic world of the imagination over and above the everyday (hence the title Above the Ground).
Colour Etching 20 x 15cm
A second example which reinterprets the romantic is Flying Thoughts (Gedankenflieger). The image of thoughts that fly might conjure up romantic associations, but these hybrid beings do not soar; rather, they are shown swooping down upon a landscape that at first seems totally barren, but on looking closer is seen to be populated by snail shells. Zooming out from the picture, the landscape becomes reminiscent of a human form in profile: a sleeping warrior. The drawing depicts the flying thoughts as uncanny and frightening; the body is that of an insect, but with feathers and its own snail shell. The figure in the foreground is skeleton-like, with wings and grasping hands; a hybrid mix of human and insect.[10] It seems to be burning as it plunges towards the empty, unhomely outside world, and the large sun in the background raises immediate parallels with Icarus. Are these embodied thoughts that fly so hubristically close to the sun that they catch fire and destroy themselves? Is every creative act of the imagination thus shown to be threatened with annihilation when it loses contact with the firm und unforgiving ground of real life? Or does the unappealing appearance of the thoughts themselves reveal them to be as desolate and uninspiring as the outer world? Either interpretation challenges the viewer to question a romantic perception of inner reality.
Etching 20 x 15cm
Unlike Rauh, who produced hardly any human faces and no self-portraits,[11] Klenner-Otto has drawn self-portraits throughout his career to date, documenting both different stages of his life as well as individual fleeting emotions and experiences.[12] In addition to this, self-portrayal leaks into other areas of his creative output. Klenner-Otto often literally includes himself within his subject matter, which not only draws from but eclectically combines the most diverse areas of high and popular culture. In Ship of Fools (Narrenschiff) I, for example, Klenner-Otto assembles a crew of Death, the author Lothar-Guenther Buchheim, whose novel was made into the film The Boat and who is presented as a baby (in fact Buchheim died when this drawing was being produced, and it was the fact that he was ‘in the news’ that prompted his inclusion), E.T.A. Hoffmann, plus himself.
Colour Etching 15 x 15cm
Ship of Fools (Narrenschiff) II shows the artist with a Fool’s Cap, sailing alongside allegorical figures representing Poverty and Arrogance. While the ship that flies is a homage to Rauh, Klenner-Otto adds the ‘Fools’ layer to link the motif more closely to allegory, to popular mythology and to a socio-political commentary on who tends to be in charge of such communal vessels.[13] This intermingling of the autobiographical, literature, folklore, mythology, high and popular culture and social and political critique articulates both his world view and his creative stimuli: he engages widely with contemporary, historical and cultural debates and only ever draws what he observes.
Colour Etching 15 x 15cm
[1] Rauh’s work combines opposites and cannot easily be characterised. According to Gerhard Mammel he was “den Surrealisten zu symbolträchtig, den Realisten zu phantastisch, den Phantasten zu wirklich”, Hellmut Albrecht: Zur Druckgrafik von Caspar Walter Rauh. In: Caspar Walter Rauh. Druckgrafik von 1951-1981. Ausgewählte Druckgraphik aus dem Nachlass von Caspar Walter Rauh. Exhibition catalogue. Ed. by Oberfrankenstiftung, Kunstverein Bayreuth 1990, unpag. See also Armin Schäfer: Jenseits von Figuration und Abstraktion. In: Caspar Walter Rauh. Schwierige Verzauberung. Exhibition catalogue of the exhibition in the Petrikirche, Kulmbach 2005. Ed.by Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa. Kulmbach 2005, p. 29-36, here p. 45. Roswitha Meußdoerffer accords him the achievement of discovering Fantastic Realism before this term was coined. She quotes Rauh’s description of his style as offering him the possibility “über eine Flucht ins Phantastische doch Kritisches über die realen Bedingungen der Zeit aussagen zu können”, Roswitha Meußdoerffer: Zum Werdegang eines phantastischen Realisten. In: Ibid., p. 7-17, here p. 8.
[2] See Maaheen Ahmed: Phantastik als Eskapismus. Caspar Walter Rauh als Illustrator. In: Zeitzeuge und Phantast. Zum Werk Caspar Walter Rauhs. Ed. by Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa. Hannover 2011, p. 187-204.
[3] See Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa: Caspar Walter Rauhs Phantastik des Wohnens. In: Schmidt-Hannisa: Zeitzeuge und Phantast, p. 83-115, p. 84, p. 102f., p. 113. See also Jürgen Zinck/Stephan Klenner-Otto: Lebensblätter. Werk und Leben des Stephan Klenner-Otto. Kulmbach 2023, p. 35-39.
[4] “Auf die Frage nach der Herkunft seiner Wesen antwortete er einmal: ‘Die kommen eigentlich von allen Seiten. Aus der Kindheit, aus dem Krieg vor allen Dingen und manchmal kommen sie aus ganz weiten Entfernungen. Aus einer Zeit vor 20.000 Jahren vielleicht.’” Quoted by Martina Kern: Aus einer anderen Perspektive – “Luftige” Lebenserinnerungen von und an Caspar Walter Rauh. In: Caspar Walter Rauh. Flugobjekte. Zeichnungen und Druckgraphiken aus der Sammlung der Oberfrankenstiftung. Ed. by Kunstmuseum Bayreuth. Bayreuth 2000, 29-31, here p. 30f.
[5] See Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa: Vom Niemandsland ins Schneckenhaus. Caspar Walter Rauhs Phantastik des Wohnens. In: Schmidt-Hannisa: Zeitzeuge und Phantast, p. 83-115, here p. 102f.
[6] Michael Niehaus: Gebilde. In: Ibid., p. 11-29, on eye motif, see p. 20-23.
[7] For an overview of Klenner-Otto’s technical methods see Zinck/Klenner-Otto: Lebenblätter, p. 17f. See also Alexander Kosenina: “Ein Meer aus Köpfen schenk’ ich dir”. In: F.A.Z., 23.10.2009.
[8] Winfried Schleyer: Literatur im Spiegel des Inneren. Drei phantastische Realisten als Illustratoren. In: Alfred Kubin – Caspar Walter Rauh – Stephan Klenner-Otto. Traumbilder – Bilderträume. Drei Generationen phantastischer Kunst. Ed. by Wolfram Benda. Hannover 2009, p. 17.
[9] See Marina von Assel: Drei Versuche über das Fliegen: Ikaros – Giannozzo – Caspar Walter Rauh. In: Kunstmuseum Bayreuth. Flugobjekte, S. 13-15; Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa: Träume vom Fliegen – Caspar Walter Rauh und Jean Paul. In: Ibid., p. 17-27; Lebensblätter 35-39: “Die Luftschiffe sind Symbole des Lebens, des Lebenslaufs, denn sie sprechen von Sehnsucht nach Heimat, nach Geborgenheit und nach grenzenloser Weite zugleich.” p. 37.
[10] Hybrid creatures, part human part animal, frequently inhabit C.W. Rauh’s landscapes and dismantle the integrity of the individual body. See Niehaus: Gebilde, p. 16; Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa: Vom Niemandsland, p. 97, Barbara Stewens: Was ist das Menschen-Tier? Anthropologische Anmerkungen zu zwei Zeichnungen von Caspar Walter Rauh. In: Schmidt-Hannisa, Zeitzeuge und Phantast, p. 117-126.
[11] See Michael Shields: In- und auswendige Blicke. Zu Caspar Walter Rauhs Gesicht-Bildern. In: Ibid., p. 31-44, here p. 31f.
[12] See Zinck/Klenner-Otto: Lebensblätter p. 69-75.
[13] On the ‘Ship of Fools’ motif see Frank Piontek: Träume, Flüge, Monstren. Stephan Klenner-Otto. In: Benda: Traumbilder- Bilderträume, p. 73-83, here p. 77f.