Maximilllian Otte – Celebrity Crushes at Galerie-P6-Berlin

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Excess is more, and you better believe it, especially when bathed in the full-on glitzy, glamorous, tongue-in-cheek sparkling utopia of Maximilian Otte’s dazzling paintings. These luxurious pop gems are brimming with high-definition images of beautiful people in vibrant spectacles, butterflies, popsicles, and puppies. And soap suds.

Their whimsical bubbles trail from one fantasy to the next as if gliding carefree over Otte’s entire universe, and landing sentimentally on his characters like orbs, never to burst.In this universe, we have perfectly fabricated celebrity clones, seemingly created out of a Barbie-world vending machine, with their skin shining plastic fantastic and fairy dusted.

Rhinestones, after party, and ice cream

Celebrity crushes.To convey this, Otte simply exaggerates to the extreme. Because if you’re going to exaggerate, you might as well do it shamelessly. In the artist’s paintings, everything is more artificial than artificial, the salon fresh hairstyles are more perfect than perfect, the heels higher than high, the people happier than happy, the lips shine like candied cherries, and the weather is lovelier than lovely, for the sun shines constantly. It is candid perpetual joy. Rhinestones, after party, and ice cream.

Otte’s speciality is conveying hyper-realistic brand-name faces and the superficiality of their glamorous worlds. And outrageously gym-honed bodies. And these privileged people don’t even age, instead remaining forever young, fit and fresh, even though they seem to spend their entire lives partying and having fun. Superstars, supermodels, a superb atmosphere. The corks are popping nonstop, champagne bottles are fizzing, and the glasses are always full.

The exhibition can be viewed in full in 3D mode here.

The rings are ultra-glamorous – no, make that hyper-glamorous – though not under their eyes, of course. Instead, they’re elsewhere – bejewelled where they belong. In fact, every idol covered head to toe in diamonds and pearls, as if they’d all just come from a jewel heist – with a credit card in hand (the black American Express Centurion Card made of titanium).

Parties are, after all, the artist’s speciality. After parties, pool parties, ice cream parlour parties. The pool is something like a liquid sky, an exclusive earthly paradise without problems and without men, but with rainbow parrots and zebras basking by the waterhole, a fountain of youth where you splash about in chlorinated bliss and the drinks are free.

The exhibition Celebrity Crushes isn’t about reality- but the unattainable fantasy of fame, fed by the human fascination with celebrity culture. So, fantastical realism in a Pop Art style, so to speak. Daydreams where the plot is entirely fictional and cringeworthy, beautiful.

‘Utopia’ might not be the word for Otte’s campy cultural commentary, but whatever this is, we are so happy to be in on the joke. Like paparazzi.

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