Antarctic Panorama National Art Museum, Moldova
Antarctic Panorama








Antarctic Panorama Penguins by OTGO 300 x 900 cm
Antarctic Panorama Penguins by OTGO acryl on canvas 300 cm x 900 cm 2015-2016

National Art Museum, Moldova
OTGO ANTARCTIC PANORAMA PENGUINS

The opening: May 18, 2016
OTGO Otgonbayar Ershuu - Solo Exhibition

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Museum, National Art, Moldova
MUZEUL NAŢIONAL de ARTĂ al MOLDOVEI
Bulevardul Ștefan cel Mare și Sfînt, Chișinău, Republik Moldau
www.mnam.md MNAM, Secţia Relaţii Publice şi Expoziţii. Tel.: 022-24-13-12

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Dr. Rolf Lauter
Zürich, Januar 2016
Otgonbayar Ershuu: Antarktis Panorama
 
 
A memorial for the world’s slaughtered penguins ....
 
The climate change sets off the extinction of plant and animal species, which disappear as the first victims of human wrongdoing. However, humans’ existence is also endangered. With the ice, it, too, will gradually melt away. It pains me to see how nature suffers and this is the story my Antarctic-Panorama reveals. I have been touched greatly by the fate of the penguins. There is something genuinely human about their fate … We have to do something for the penguins! The Antarctic Panorama is a highly critical and sorrowful picture. The colors are weeping, the ice and snow is melting away with the penguins.“    
(Otgonbayar Ershuu)

work in progress: Antarctic Panorama Penguins 300x900cm by OTGO
detail: Antarctic Panorama Penguins
 
Otgonbayar Ershuu was born 18th January 1981 in Ulaanbaatar/Mongolia. His great talent for drawing and painting was recognized early and by the age of 15 he had his first solo exhibition. From 1998 to 2001 OTGO studied in Utaanbaatar traditional Mongolian painting. After graduation, he participated as a painter and restorer on several research trips to historical sites in Mongolia. In the Buddhist-Lamaist monasteries he studied different techniques, the iconography of the miniature painting as well as their spiritual backgrounds. 
 
Since 2005 he lives and works in Berlin. 2007-2010 he studied at the Institute for Art in Context, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Arts in Berlin and graduated in 2010 as Master of Arts. His international exhibitions began in 2001. OTGO’S first major group of works are the Thangkas, i.e. Miniature paintings whose contents are derived from the gods worlds of Shamanism, Buddhism and Tengriasm, which applies the artist without a sketch directly onto a specially primed canvas. The primer of screens consists of a mixture of carbon black, chalk and milk vodka or brandy. Pigments from minerals or plants are added. Finally, the mixture is bound with glue from Yakskin and applied to both sides of the canvas. Using the special technique developed by OTGO and the state of highest concentration caused about 600 Thangkas. Striking is the mostly eroticized representation of the subjects. A guiding principle of the Mongolian belief is to achieve the “All - unit” by overcoming all of the real world phenomenon. A second working group consists of approximately 600 pages of comic-like illustrations of the “Secret History of the Mongols” which was written about 800 years ago. It is the oldest and most important literary works of the Mongols, myth, epic and history at the same time. With its miniature illustrations OTGO wanted to do this important work easier to read for all ages of its culture. 
 
His third and most recent group of works, starting with the large-scale painting “HUN” (2010- 2012), we could entitle as “Paradise Paintings.” “HUN” is an all-over painting of approximately 12000 people and animals interwoven and designed to a condensed panorama-like, vibrant microcosm. Humans and animals are drawn as miniature-like, individual elements, merge in the picture, however, in a colorful motion-suggestive overall composition similar to a mirror image of the oriented harmony Mongolian culture. Through their pictorially expressive language, OTGO’s pictures palpably evoke an image of man and nature in unison, in a world which has been left partially untouched by civilization. 
 
Now OTGO sees this originally paradisiac world extremely endangered. In his newer works his “paradise paintings” have started to transform into “allegories of a lost paradise,” warning imageries of a once natural cosmos, which is now about to turn into its opposite, a world determined by destruction and sadness. For OTGO, the penguins act as symbolic figures of an endangered wildlife and are ambassadors of his commitment, emphasizing the necessity for a more conscious and careful approach towards environmental pollution and global warming. 
 
The ice on the Antarctic peninsula is melting away from under the penguins’ feet.  Some colonies have diminished 60% of their original size. In some places of the Antarctic the earth is heating up five times more than the planet’s average. It has even become warmer in 3000 meters depth.” 
(DIE WELT)
 
One of the central pieces among his recent working series is called "Antarctic Panorama" and depicts  a penguin colony of around 20.000 animals in their Antarctic habitat, once termed “the eternal ice.” The 300 by 900 cm tall panorama painting consists of 12 equal-sized single paintings, each measuring 150 by 150 cm. In comparison to his previous works, which were characterized mostly by a high precision of single images, a virtually moving composition and a coloristic rich-in-contrast structure of forms, his “Antarctic Panorama” reveals that its compositional focus is based on the behavioral structures of the penguins: individual behavior, family formations, mass gatherings, migration and formations of movement. OTGO has intensively studied the behavior and brutal decimation of the penguin population in the period of industrialization and is now combining his experiences and subjective sentiments with a socio-political message in his large-format work.  
 
The size of the painting refers to the scope of meaning the topic has acquired for the artist. In contrast to his earlier animal drawings, the detailed drawings of the penguins appear softer and increasingly pictorial as they evince a kind of “anthropomorphism.” The icescape’s white conglomerates with the penguins’ white bellies which have been tinged yellow by the sun light and thereby make up an impressionist composition that in turn celebrates the harmonious interplay between natural elements and the animals. To express his sadness OTGO finally covered the canvas with vertically flowing white lines, which overlay the whole creation as a reticular veil of tears. 
 
With “Antarctic Panorama” OTGO has created an oeuvre which symbolically expresses a highly sensitive social topic through its virtuosic painting. Due to the artist’s typical combination of graphic, pictorial and coloristic media in combination with its large format, we may speak of this painting as a modern memorial for the preservation of nature.

Translation from German to English by Elisa Kohl-Garrity


work in progress: Antarctic Panorama Penguins 300x900cm by OTGO
detail: Antarctic Panorama Penguins

Resurrection of 20. 000 penguins by a young Mongolian
It is time we light candles to commemorate the many penguins which were slaughtered to make lamp oil.

J. Erdenetsetseg
Newspaper Unuudur („Today“) in Mongolia of 22. December 2015
 
The Artist E. Otgonbayar, who is a resident of Germany, raised his voice against global climate change and brought back to life 20 000 penguins with the stroke of his brush.  He comments on his nine meter broad and three meter tall painting: “Climate change causes the extinction of plant and animal species on earth, as the first victims of human misconduct.  However, the existence of humanity is endangered as well; together with the ice, it too, will melt away.  It pains me to see how nature suffers and my Antarctic-Panorama speaks of this pain.
 Antarctic Panorama Penguins by OTGO 300 x 900 cm
detail: Antarctic Panorama Penguins

I have largely completed work on this picture, which I started in May 2015.  I had informed myself about climate change rather intensely, but never really intended to paint something like this. The penguins caused me to paint this picture. Their story is so tragic that it can only be depicted in black shades.

In the past two hundred years the population of penguins have decimated dramatically. Statistics tell us that there are only around forty colonies of emperor penguins left worldwide, of which each counts around one hundred to one thousand members.  And so one day I came up with the idea to create another colony of emperor penguins, the forty-first. It would be comprised of 20 000 members.

Humanity has committed great sins against penguins. At the beginning and mid-19th century seals, wales, elephant seals and similar animals were hunted on great scale. The massacres of these animals could almost be compared to the tragedies of the first and second world war. Initially the penguins went unnoticed, for their meat was considered inedible and their skin was too hard for processing. Nevertheless, when man realized that their grease did not congeal, much like that of the common lamp oil, they literally squeezed the poor animals, or they were burned alive for fuel.
The heavy loaded ships carrying thousands of slain seals, wales, etc. consumed vast amounts of coal. Not only was this very expensive, but the coal-fired ships were also much too slow. Firing the furnaces with penguins, not only provided good fuel, but also saved coal. Officers and sailors reported that they burned around 700 animals per day on their ships. One of these reports reads: “The penguins cause a lot of clamor anyway. Whenever we threw one of them into the fire alive, it screamed miserably for about a quarter of an hour until it was dead. Then we threw the next one into the furnace.“
It got even worse when someone came up with the idea to use penguin grease as lamp oil. The Macquarie-Islands mainly processed royal penguins. A royal penguin could deliver 250g of grease. 4.000 animals delivered a ton of grease, which was traded at eight-teen pounds sterling only. As one of the reports reveals the poor animals were driven over a ramp screaming miserably and fell into a cauldron of boiling oil. This is where they were boiled alive. According to reports, this is how 4.000 to 6.000 penguins were used daily. The animals added up to around 150.000 per season for a period of 70 years.  Faced with these numbers we realize the measure of human wrongdoing. Eventually, animal rights activists put an end to these cruelties and the factory was closed in 1918.
Antarctic Panorama Penguins by OTGO 300 x 900 cm
detail: Antarctic Panorama Penguins

This is the true history of penguins which were doomed to light up our dark Europe –as living torches so to say. Like it or not, these animals arouse compassion, one feels the need to help them, do something for them.  The Antarctic-Panorama was created out of this deep compassion. Today, I was invited to a conversation with the Ms. S. Oyuun, a member of the Mongolian parliament.  We will discuss how artists can be heard in the struggle against climate change through their medium of art.

I still remember the day when I first read about the fate of the penguins. I was captured by their story and when I suddenly heard some kind of noise behind me I got terribly scared. It was then when I realized that I was crying. I was haunted by nightmares for three nights. It is really such a terribly sad story, the fate of the penguins.”


Translation from German to English by Elisa Kohl-Garrity

Antarctic Panorama Penguins by OTGO 300 x 900 cm
detail: Antarctic Panorama Penguins
Antarctic Panorama Penguins by OTGO 300 x 900 cmdetail: Antarctic Panorama Penguins

Gallery Studio OTGO II Berlin - Video work in progress:


Gallery Studio OTGO II Berlin
- Video work in progress:


Gallery Studio OTGO II Berlin
work in progress: Antarctic Panorama Penguins 300x900cm by OTGO
detail: Antarctic Panorama Penguins







 



Antarctic Panorama National Art Museum, Modawien
Antarctic Panorama National Art Museum, Modawien

OTGO