A Pilgrimage To A Garage

Jacob Ott and Johannes Willi are once again releasing a series of collaborative paintings. They do it in a garage.

Engelberg lies at the end of a shady, Catholic valley. Engelberg is a dead end. If you would tur left after the monastery, you would end up at a place called 'the end of the world'. I keep to the right, in the shadow of the Titlis, watch a ski jump and head for the 'Wasserfall' restaurant (fitness plate for 27.50 francs, a panaché and a café crème). This winter wonderland walk is my approach to the exhibition.

“Jacob was sick” the night before the exhibition, says Pina, who has ‘miraculously cured’ him. Great, that will increase the flow of pilgrims to the Engelberg Valley. Jacob: “I come from Catholic Upper Bavaria - but my parents kept the church away from us as much as possible.”

No stamp memory

Jacob is one of two exhibiting artists. Their pictures seem to be stuck like stamps where ski and garden tools are usually stored. Aligned dead straight on the rough concrete walls, they appear colorful and naive at first glance. In some cases, the paint has been applied quite thickly. At second glance, the naivety is perhaps more like courage.

Many pictures provoke a smile. A few could almost be caricatures - but some are of something that is not funny at all. It's worth taking a second look. There are also some unpleasant moments (barbed wire over tennis socks). Nevertheless, there is a lot of tongue-in-cheek, some works could be illustrated puns. Painted anecdotes without a punch line. There is a knight's helmet with an arrow hanging in the viewing slit, there are “the rivulets of tears of a hunter who has missed and is therefore weeping with happiness”, as Jacob explains, howling. Pressed leaves, you might think, hang next to a 90-centime stamp from which the paint is peeling, its motif: overturned furniture.

The exhibitors do not respond to my suggestion to play memory with the pictures (or at least form pairs). Perhaps the stamp comparison was already too cheeky. Nevertheless, I would like to see more large formats. Some of the canvases seem too small for the stories they can carry and tell. And they hang too damn close. “That's right,” says Johannes, the other exhibiting artist, who immediately regroups and lightens the exhibition by a few canvases.

Collecting shells, throwing up, painting

Jacob and Johannes left in the fall in a car full of paint and canvases. They wanted to paint undisturbed in Normandy. Johannes: “In Basel, I have too many distractions and no chance to keep at it.” They had announced 50 paintings before they left. There are now even a few more in the garage, including the pile of unfinished works.

The two endured the solitude they sought, collected shells, vomited them and painted. In Normandy, near Dieppe on the English Channel, 700 kilometers away from Basel. Enduring seclusion does not always work out equally well. Is it true that John fled from the solitude of northern France to have fun in Paris? Yes, but also because Jacob was playing a concert in Freiburg in the meantime.

Really very common

How does this painting together actually work? Many paintings hang next to each other at the same time, they are “open”. Jacob and Johannes take it in turns to dedicate themselves to them, without a fixed sequence, sometimes for a few brushstrokes, sometimes for entire elements or new beginnings. Whoever thinks a painting is finished hangs it on the corresponding wall. Johannes: “Jacob is a driven painter, he often stays at it longer than I do.” Jacob: “And yet I can finish paintings better than you.” So does Johannes sometimes hinder the process? “No, on the contrary, the collaboration has worked well before.” In the discipline of painting, most recently with their mosquito paintings in the new Tropical Institute building.

Jacob and Johannes are good at working together: painting (again and again), living (also already), scouring (on Wednesdays), performing (now). The last hour of the exhibition begins with a performance: Johannes talks about a mountain tour with fractures, Jacob plays the guitar - and Johann, coming straight from his afternoon nap, dances. After a few minutes, Johann provokes the dissolution of this division of roles.

Out of the garage

Which picture is particularly talked about? Many mention the tractor. Clear motif, clear structure, even the division of labor between the artists was relatively strict here: One painted the background, one painted the vehicle. This simplicity is an exception. Many canvases have been painted over several times, the history of the paintings has taken branches and changed several times.

I think about what else started in garages: Apple, Google, Nirvana. And then Johannes actually plays “Come as you are” during the performance (why does he suddenly have Jacob's guitar?).