11. Death, 2008

chalk on blackboard-painted archival cotton paper

100 x 70 cm

BONHOEFFER IN HARLEM
St Matthauskirche, Kulturforum, Berlin in conjunction with Alexander Ochs Galleries Berlin | Beijing, 10 April – 2 August 2009

"In his works for Bonhoeffer in Harlem, John Young succeeds in spanning a great distance in both thematic and artistic terms. Starting with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in whom central terms like transculturality, ethical commitment, and responsible action are combined, we are presented with political developments that begin in the Third Reich, continue through Young’s history of his own identity, and end with the Nepalese exile of the rug maker Lob Sang from Tibet. This thematic complexity finds its artistic expression in three different work groups, in which Young plays with various media and materialities and subjects them to processes of transformation: paper becomes blackboard, glass becomes silk or canvas. In the combination, we are presented with an iridescent image, a shifting between light and dark, opacity and transparence, being earthly and Christian spirituality. The board drawings emblematize repression and death, but the tapestry as well as both abstract works disperse the severity of these works, and in so doing Young leads us back to light and hope."

Sylvia Dominique Volz
Art historian, Berlin, Germany
2009