SALOME

1954 born in Karlsruhe

lives and works in Idaho and Berlin

A painter who attracts the prefix "ex": excessive, expressive, exhibitionist, exalted and existential. Emotions extend over huge canvasses - this is an enlarged ME which wants to be desired. The artist has been in Berlin since 1972. His personal politicisation process took place here; for example, he was psticipating in the "Rosa Winkel" ("Pink Angle") research project.

For all the discussion about emancipation and identity, it was also a matter of objectification. Some people adopted girls' names, and thus the name Salomé was born.

In 1977 Salome and Rainer Fetting had the idea of starting a gallery - the self-help gallery at Moritz Platz. It was a period of parties and artistic discussions, especially about art... whether the subject be Middendorf's beer paintings, Fetting's wall paintings, Zimmer's flood paintings or Salomés fuck paintings. During the night Salomé experienced Berlin night life at first hand, in all its toxic immediacy. During the day he would paint what he had experienced as being possessed.

In 1980 the "Heftige Malerie" ("Strong Painting") exhibition was held, his breakthrough. As Salomé says: "It was a dream; over night we had made it. And then we wanted to explore what the term 'commercial' meant."

In the meantime the artist has travelled to every corner of the earth, he has found fame and fortune, is considered a classic artist and has a certain distance from the hurly-burly world of art.