About THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"The Basis of Make-Up" (Die Basis des Make-Up) is an ongoing series of more than 600 drawings Heinz Emigholz is working on since 1974. "Originals" of the drawings do not exist, they only serve as intermediate steps in the production of "original prints". These are archival photo prints (20 x 24 inch) of the drawings in a limited and signed edition of 22. The prints are sold by several galleries.

Different versions of the series and installations of the drawings have been exhibited over the last 25 years internationaly in many galleries and museums. Since 1975 many drawings have been reproduced in countless magazines, newspapers, catalogues and books.

The title page of the series, a photograph of a scull, has been found by Heinz Emigholz in San Diego 1975 in a handbook about make-up techniques from the 30es. The caption under the image read "The Basis of Make-Up", and became immediately the title of the series, as well as of several of his films since then.

 

Drawing (1) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"NYC, September 1974. Ein Traum geträumt im vierten Stock des Bürohauses 100 Hudson Street in Lower Manhattan. Eine Schaufel schwebt über einem Schiffsdeck und wirft einen senkrechten Schatten - am Wendekreis des Krebses, zur Zeit der Sommersonnenwende. Eine symbolisch kolorierte Welt: B = ein Stück blauer Himmel, G = ein Fleck grauer Farbe an der Kabinenwand eines Schiffes, an der ein Rettungsring hängt. Das Deck ist blankgescheuert, die Reling weiß lackiert. Das Meer glitzert ruhig vor sich hin. Eine über der Szene schwebende Stimme prophezeit: "The pain starts at 10 pm", der Schmerz beginnt um zehn Uhr abends. Der Beginn einer Reise, der Horror vor der Linie des Horizonts. Die Selbstständigkeit der Dinge, die Ritzen zwischen den Schiffsplanken als Fluchtlinien und die Beschwörung eines bis dahin abwesenden Schmerzes. Dieses ist die erste Zeichnung der Serie Die Basis des Make-Up. Den Traum nach dem Erwachen niederzuschreiben, erschien mir zu kompliziert. Vergessen wollte ich ihn auch nicht, deshalb die Skizze." (Aus: flypaper #5, 2010).

(1974)

Drawing (2) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"Text under construction"

President Street. 

 (1975)

Drawing (3) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"Brooklyn, 1975, 240 President Street. A sofa bed complete with cushions floating upwards into weightlessness, a fan set to zero and a woman in a black dress whose braceleted arm is stuck to the plastic covering of the armchair. Zero gravity. On the tour of Morocco that Paul Bowles undertook with Aaron Copland at the start of the 30s, the former admitted in Fez that he wasn’t able to share the latter’s enthusiasm for the country. He said there was nothing new for him there, he’d already seen and heard equivalent things back on President Street in Brooklyn when he was a child. Places can speak to one person, but remain silent for others. I had no idea where I’d ended up, although I knew I was at considerable risk of going mad in this place, just like Nelson Dyar did in Tangiers in 1951. Later, Jacques Levy and Bob Dylan told the story of Joseph Gallo, known as Crazy Joey, on Desire, who was born there and carried to his grave there too. Even more than an experiment, life seemed to me like a forced research exercise." (From: arsenal, july 2021).

(1975)

Drawing (4) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"A cannoneer with just a stub of bone for a right arm presents the opening of a gun barrel, a 12 incher, on a postcard. It was sent from the battleship USS Delaware in July 1900 and has  'Where the marks are is where the gun opens' written on the back. (Edward T.) FUSCO (Incorporated) writing paper, found in 100 Hudson Street, 1974. A hand runs its fingernails along a whitewashed wall. A lamp that emits darkness to a limited extent is placed next to the window as a science fiction object. During the day, the window is shrouded by an overlong curtain whose fabric also covers the hole in the floor, where is where I lay down in Brooklyn. I remember so well the body that no longer exists. We are the survivors, those who consume, those who were exchanged. The cheating forgetful, the listless combiners. If the story were already over, more than few names would occur to me in relation to it. As it is, it hardly makes you curious for the end." (From: arsenal, april 16)

(1997)

 

Zeichnung (5) aus DIE BASIS DES MAKE-UP

"Manhattan, 1974. Ein unlogischer Schattenwurf auf das Fenster eines leeren Apartments mit Ausblick auf die beiden Türme des World Trade Centers. Der Auszug und die Aussicht auf eine Rückkehr - irgendwann, immerhin, später - in einer als endlos empfundenen Zeit. Doppeltrapezförmige Holzsärge erzeugen in mir Übelkeit, ich schrecke vor ihnen zurück, scheue ihren Anblick. Hier dagegen ein Designer-Sarg aus Italien unter einem marmoriert gemusterten und in Falten gelegten Überwurf auf einem schwarzen Teppichfetzen - later, sometime, nevertheless - am Ende der Zeit. Gespräche mit Ken Jacobs in einem Frühstückslokal an der Chambers Street über die Zeitenwende im Iran, die prophezeite Ankunft Hazrat Mehdis, deren Begleitumstände Mohammed Atta siebenundzwanzig Jahre später in NYC heraufbeschwören zu müssen meinte. Wir liefen ohne Ziel zwischen den Börsianern umher, alles schien zum letzten Mal billig zu sein: Dies war einmal unsere Zeit. Der heraufdämmernde Hohn der Besserverdienenden, die juckende Haut und das Kratzen." (Aus: flypaper #5, 2010).

(1975)

Drawing (6) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"Hamburg, 1978, the nightmare of arrested time: Two loaves of bread riding a dark thought - one round and one tin, both sucked in by a vaporizer of milk - provide the starting point for a film with the working title Ordinary Sentence of Simultaneity. In the corner of my room a crest from a Japanese wood carving. Three black steamers in formation glide undisturbed through the through of the wave - an irreversible movement: The arts complete themselves, life fulfils itself - unavoidable and unaccompanied. That the world would go under in style was a widespread belief of the social class I stem from, and that that does not need to be duplicated through representation is mine. Perhaps the despair of those days is retraced too elegantly here, but the fact that a new twist in filmmaking led it away from its torpor speaks against such a view. Nonetheless, the wavering space between cool perception and its impact remains." (From: arsenal, january 12).

(1978)

Drawing (7) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"Three giraffes watching TV in a motel, the module of an infinite picture for wallpaper of an Italian children’s room. As opposed to television, that started at one point and to which we connect and disconnect throughout our life, film – as a traditional cultural form with a beginning, middle and end – still leads to differing opinions. Films are finite products. Cinematographic representation proudly states: this is how I once was and this is what I am like now. As a medium, television stands for an entirely different perception of reality. It is the image of a flow that cannot be defined and thus the constant assertion of an opposite. In formal terms, it is the hitherto most successful parody of life. Everything we contribute to it has nothing to do with us. We appear on TV and for this reason mean nothing anymore. No chance for criticism and its selective methods of objection. A true euthanasia medium." (From: arsenal, february 09).

(1976) 

Zeichnung (8) aus DIE BASIS DES MAKE-UP

"Hamburg, 1977. Der Innenraum eines Containers mit quadratischem Ausblick. Darin zwei Selbstportraits - eine multiple Persönlichkeit als Teilnehmer verschiedener Universen - nackt an einer Glasscheibe sitzend und gehend mit vorgestrecktem linkem Arm in einem Lodenmantel und mit Hut, beide Ansichten von hinten. THE GLASS - Das Glas, zum Zersplittern gespannt, eine unheimliche Materie, durch die wir schauen können, als lebten wir in einer Utopie. THE SAID - Das Gesagte, eine Stele aus der Vergangenheit, die den Schatten des Gehenden durchkreuzt. Es ist unsere Bekleidung, hängt von uns herab, macht uns lesbar wie die letzte Mode. Mein im Fensterrahmen gespiegeltes Profil bildet als Vexier-Bild ein Gefäß, in Vorbereitung auf den Film Normalsatz. THE CASE - Der Fall, in jeder Sekunde neu. Ein positiv angeschaltetes und ein negativ ausgeschaltetes Ohr aus weißem und aus schwarzem Marmor. In der Tat höre ich nur auf einem Ohr und kann wählen, zu hören oder nicht zu hören. Ein Quadrat im Quadrat, in dem sich alles, besonders aber die Mehrdeutigkeit, ereignet. " (Aus: Zeichnung oder Film, 2013).

(1977)

Drawing (9) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"Once everything had been reconstructed, a second wave of comprehensive renovation campaigns began in West Germany at the start of the 70s. World improvement and armament via asbestos cladding, plasterboard walls and glass blocks. Here the Porch project, the door to the house as the central component of identity formation, the canopy a sword of Damocles. Concrete slabs in front of the house, into whose gaps pesticide was sprayed to prevent grass from growing. And sweet E 605 powder was sprinkled in the entrances to the anthills. Accompanied by the throwaway instructions for how to peel off the foil from a brown-black Polaroid negative film. An American trashcan floats over a hairdressers’ chair in the capacity of a universal emblem. We had picked up the latter on the street outside the Zippelhaus in Hamburg before returning it there later. Behind it, two ways of writing a “Y” on the side of a box-shaped flying robot, reminiscent of the waterbugs in NYC – huge, flying albino cockroaches. Two black plywood sheets provide the necessary privacy for shaving fat necks." (From: arsenal, march 14).

(1976)

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