Camuflajes Johannes Zechner and Pedro Serrano

The “Camouflajes” project is a committed collaboration between a visual artist and a writer. Over the course of several years, the Graz-based painter Johanes Zechner and the Mexico City-based writer Pedro Serrano have developed a distant collaboration that “turns questioningly towards a world in which living spaces are misused as theaters of war and the number of drones is more interesting than the singing of birds.” (Zechner).

Since February 2022 (Ukraine) and October 2023 (Gaza), the world has been under the impression of two armed confrontations that were hardly thought possible. However, the world is currently facing 56 armed conflicts or wars - more than ever before. 

Camouflage is basically an expression of the connection between living beings and their environment. It can also be described as a survival technique. In a military context, weapons and soldiers are protected by camouflage and operate highly efficiently out of concealment, as it were. They use camouflage to deceive their opponent or enemy. 

Zechner uses various camouflage fabrics and items of clothing in these works. Like remnants from tragic contexts, discarded, lost and picked up again, recoded and undefined in their new function, these patterns lose none of their horror, although they are also a coveted fashion tool. Zechner combines them with boxes that have been taken apart - tablet boxes, packaging for food, office supplies, etc. - to give them their three-dimensionality. This robs them of their three-dimensionality and turns them into flat image carriers. Zechner also collages fabrics and various other materials onto canvases, which he also paints. Words, poems or text passages by Pedro Serrano are integrated into the pictures. Serrano wrote around 30 poems for this project. The fact of war and the experience of violence in his own country flow into these poems, as does his reaction to Zechner's visuality.

Both artists agree that neither painting nor poetry will change the world, but their readers and viewers will. Art demands an attitude from the audience through which they “sensitively sense values of general relevance and thus create the conditions for a creative reorientation.” (Serrano).

The “Camouflajes” project will also be shown in Mexico City and Madrid. It will be accompanied by a catalog in German and Spanish.