Art talk on John Young: Bonhoeffer in Harlem

Location

In his exhibition "Bonhoeffer in Harlem", artist John Young, who was born in Hong Kong in 1956 and lives in Melbourne, explores the Protestant pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The idea for the exhibition "Bonhoeffer in Harlem" goes back to a visit to Berlin. In November 2007, accompanied by Alexander Ochs, the curator of the PURPLE PATH art and sculpture trail in Chemnitz, he visited St Matthew's Church, where Dietrich Bonhoeffer was ordained as a pastor in 1931. Immediately impressed by the visit, Young felt the urge to dedicate an exhibition to this outstanding personality. Back in Australia, the artist began developing the concept for his multi-part work "Bonhoeffer in Harlem", which essentially consists of two parts. The first part consists of an abstract image woven into a silk carpet and eleven panels on paper. The artist approached the theologian based on his stay in New York and used the African colours of the windows in the Abyssinan Baptist Church, which he processed with a random digital program. The design was produced by the Tibetan carpet weaver Dolma Lobsang, who emigrated to Nepal, which lends the work an additional spiritual aspect.
The second part consists of three high-resolution photographs and eight sheets of text written in black blackboard ink, reflecting Bonhoeffer's work and life up to his execution in Flossenbürg on 9 April 1945.

In conversation with the curator Alexander Ochs, we discuss the genesis of the exhibition, the artist John Young and the understanding of his work.