David Lynch

Beauty and the Sublime

in

the Art of David Lynch

Just the words "dark secret" are so beautiful. 

I. Lynchs Beautiful

David Lynch has a particular fondness for the adjective beautiful. Whether in official interviewsor in private conversations, his characterization of a wide range of things with this designationis evident. As if he were essentially looking at the world with enthusiastic eyes/ the

artist describes many things as beautiful. He rarely speaks of the opposite. The words terrible and awful are not among the expressions he often makes use of. When addressed about this point he reacts amazed, mischievous, and amused. What does the artist associate with this adjective?

To approach his concept on the matter, we must take a look at the immediate contexts in which something seems beautiful to him. ln a 2007 conversation with Kristine McKenna for the exhibition of his paintings, drawings, and photographs at the Fondation Cartier in Paris Lynch was incessantly enthusiastic about his own works. He stands by them and finds them “cool” or ”beautiful” although they would hardly strike the detached observer as such.  What does “beautiful“ mean in the reception of these works? What David Lynch regards as “beautiful” would certainly not be described as such by most viewers.

The factory photographs taken in Poland and the former East Germany in 2006, while filming Inland Empire, are a good example of Lynch´s fascination for a destroyed environment that stems from the era of industrial euphoria. The abandoned/ gloomy, lost atmosphere of decline and decay is hardly reconcilable with our accepted notions of beauty.

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Thomas W. Gaehtgens

 David Lynch-Dark Splendor

Edited by Werner Spies

With essays by

Dietmar Dath, Stefanie Diekmann,

Thomas W. Gaehtgens, Andreas Platthaus, Peter-Klaus Scuster, Werner Spies