Kunstansichten in Offenbach
The creation and production of „Beauty and the Beast – Venice meets New York City“ is the peak as well as summary of Knut Hartmann’s biennial project “CityLights”. It documents the development from night light to daylight, the encounter of the spotlights Venice and New York City. The cities function as magnetising icons at the very top of the ranking of globalisation values. Extremes of day- and night time, of a sinking and a continuously emerging city are presented. A contrast of 1400 years of difference in age – time seems to stand still at one place and appears to run away at the other. Culture for business and business for culture. Extremes – ideal for creating a love story.
“As I travelled through the lagoons in brilliant sunshine and observed the brightly clothed gondoliers rowing, lightly floating over the bright green surface in the blue air, I saw the best, freshest picture of the Venetian school. The sunshine highlighted the local colours brilliantly, and the shadows where so bright that they could have served as lights again. The same applies to the gleaming sea-green water. Everything was painted light in light, so that the foaming wave was covered in flashlights which were necessary for the icing on the cake.”
From Goethe’s Italian Journey 1829 “With a painter’s eyes”
“New York was always more than a city: a myth, a symbol of the American dream, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. From a dishwasher to a millionaire seemed nowhere more possible than in this dream-soaked, pulsating metropolis. Since Stephan Crane’s Maggie and Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer, the dark side of the myth has also been thought about: the city as a man-eater, the Moloch as a machine which alienates, misery and death, destructive isolation and stimulating spiritual energy continue to build the core perception of every large city and the reference points of every literary description.”
Jan Karsten about Ray Loriga’s novel “The man who invented Manhattan”