AL alias DENKSTAHL is an autodidact artist. While three decades ago his work was strongly influenced by abstract and action painting, he now has adopted digital art as his chosen profession and expression. Digital visual art has its origins in socially critical comics and caricatures, but above all, in graphic advertising, especially booming in recent decades. He thus represents a relatively young art form that tends to be ridiculed by critics. In contrast to that, there are also those advocates of digital art who see this art form as a necessary development and consequence of digitization. Digital art is currently experiencing a lot of hype in different versions due to so-called crypto art. Just recently, a crypto work of art by the American digital artist Beeple, a collage of 5000 images, was auctioned for 69 million euros at Christie’s in New York.

DENKSTAHL is an artist who impresses, provokes and irritates. He is socially critical and does not follow the current mainstream of artistic creation. He questions current social and political issues as well as the repertoire of representation as we know it from classical art history as such. Recurring symbols in his oeuvre are traditional representation schemes, such as excerpts from scenes of the Crucifixion; Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, Michelangelo’s The Creation of David from the Sistine Chapel or other scenes by well-known history and genre painters, to name a few. He modifies these for his work and gives them his personal stamp and his personal note. His art was never intended to just please, but to stimulate thought and initiate reflection.

DENKSTAHL’s works are peppered with details that pull the viewer under their spell and often only unfold in their depth at second glance. This addressed can be very direct and shocking, or subtle and reserved. If you look at his oeuvre, it is noticeable that all of his works aim for a long-distance effect. In their large-format they come across as colourful, and only reveal the details that characterize them when viewed close-up. One can easily lose oneself it these.

The artist characteristically mixes archaic symbols and modern brand logos in his digital work. Well-known car brands, textile and fashion labels, coffee brands and social media brands are among the main components of his works, but they are not always noticeable at first glance. His portraits of Natives, which are part of a comprehensive series of portraits of well-known personalities, are eloquent examples of this.

This series, branded as HEADS, portrays well-known US politicians standing alongside pop and music idols such as John Lennon or Marilyn Monroe. Held in bright, strong colors and strong contrasts, the Natives’ portraits have a magnetic attraction that guides and catches the eye. Here, Native Americans are not only presented in a new light, but the viewer themself is also clearly criticized.

Almost too discreet and hidden yet still emblazoned on the chest of an Indian is the logo of the most famous coffee chain in the world – Starbucks. Is it an analogy that the coffee giant is displacing the small shops just as the »white man« displaced the natives? Possible – but DENKSTAHL incites and encourages looking, tempts the viewer to think about it without propagating a certain direction or opinion. The brand logo of the coffee giant, but also numerous others, are omnipresent symbols in our everyday lives. Just think of the logos of Apple, Google or fashion labels like Prada, Louis Vuitton, Chanel. The artist places them in a new, different context within his pictures and confronts the viewer, stimulating them to reflect on what has become customary.

With all the rebellion we encounter in DENKSTAHL’s work, he is still heavily influenced by the history of art. Bonds that are familiar to the observer from classical art history can be found again and again. His references range from portrait and genre painting of the Renaissance and Dutch landscape painting to surrealism and abstraction. It is this combination of well-known pictorial traditions, splendor of colors, strong contrasts and impulses given by symbols and logos that characterizes DENKSTAHL’s work and catches the viewer’s eye.

Further differences only become apparent on closer inspection and a comparison with the original Da Vinci. Instead of a light blue robe as a symbol of purity, holiness and loyalty, he wears a green robe decorated with blue precious stones. Green is traditionally considered gentle, calming, healthy and is equated with hope. Blue and green contrast with the color red – purity and hope vs. danger and warning.

In addition to these motivic and iconographic changes, DENKSTAHL also plays with the title. The Most Expensive Virus Of All Time refers to the record amount that was achieved at the auction and the title as »the most expensive painting in the world«, which has since been associated with the original, but can also be used as a contemporary testimony to the current pandemic situation. Especially those not yet foreseeable (economic) consequences are alluded here.

The late medieval image type of a blessing, Christ as the savior of humanity and the healer of the world, is exaggerated and caricatured in DENKSTAHL’s work. Again, art does not have to be just pleasing, you have to deal with it.