Josef Zekoff: Paradise

The facelessness of the protagonists in Josef Zekoff’ s paintings is one of their most distinctive features. From emblematic labyrinths – he does also paint ornaments and maps – to drawn stick figures, the in-between space occupied by these paintings encourages self-reflection, which does, however, require courage on the part of the viewer. Or as Florian Waldvogel writes in his introductory text: » Do the protagonists of his paintings seek an encounter with something that goes beyond the world of objects and fixed quantities? Is it, as Martin Heidegger writes in › What is Metaphysics?‹ , about an encounter with the › nothing‹ within › dread‹ ? Does the confrontation with › nothing‹ in Zekoff’ s paintings refer to our fear in the face of the original meaninglessness of the world, to the fact that it is existence that ascribes meanings to things?« The worldliness of the world, according to Heidegger, lies in this emptiness, and Zekoff’ s figures, unlike the viewers, do not dread nothingness. But as in Jacobean tragedy, fear needs the awareness of loss in order to survive. According to Marcel Proust, Florian Waldvogel concludes, the true paradises are those that have been lost.