AMAZONI

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Extract from Die Chronik, interview with Maximilian Kirmse

DC: Can health be a romantic topic?

MK: I read an article, that something gets lost when everyone stops smoking. It is a beautiful thing that people smoke, I enjoy it when smoking is being romantically glorified.

It is more romantic to be unwise, same with being in love, the spirit of adventure. With a fag it is quite irrelevant. You could become the new romantic non-smoker-painter.

I can imagine, that most of the painters start to paint for a romantic reason, since it is obvious that it will be difficult to make a living from it and when you accept the risk, you have to take into account that it might maybe ends badly and that you might just sit by candlelight in an attic and paint the penultimate painting with your final bits of oil paint left.

I made this agreement with myself, when I made the decision to become a painter. And I can't imagine how to come over this. You have to take into consideration that it might not work out to make a living from it.

Why Amazoni?

On the one hand side it is the continuation of my last exhibition Interzoni.. While the term Zoni refers to the people in the former East Germany, the Zone, of whom I was a part, even though I was only three years old when the wall came down. Somehow this is still relevant for myself, being a child of my parents and their way of socialisation. But in general I think the Zonis make a subject of discussion these days, compared to the Wessis. I guess it must be beacuse of some kind of pride. Nailing one's colours to the mast. Or to show your true colours.