'Hear The Lizards Listening' by Claude Eigan & Maren Karlson at MÉLANGE, Cologne

The lizard basking in the sun is a well-known protagonist of philosophical thinking. What’s the relationship between the motionless lizard and the stone, the motionless stone on the ground and the human approaching it’s own reflection in the reptile’s eye?

The animal’s suspended state of awareness, mind and body absorbed into the environment, is something humans can rarely achieve – in unconscious delirium, when they are sick with emotions or immersed in psychoactive darkness. We as humans are prisoners of our own bodies and experiences.

Which is better off, a lizard basking in the sun or a philosopher?

Some of the cold-blooded reptilians are even said to shape-shift into human form. Playing the role of the alien predator, the reptoids originated from new age philosophy populate our fantasy and occasionally our politics. Lizards have had their claws in humankind since ancient time.

Hear the Lizards Listening is a contrapuntal proposal to the realm of the rational human conscious. It suggests listening for silence, searching for the alien within, wether mutated or genetically engineered allowing the lizard to return the gaze.

The poem She Rose by Maren Karlson sets the tone for this encounter. The two artists collaboratively created a group of humanoid sculptures, examining the visitor from outside the window. Claude Eigan’s sculpture Inner Saboteur is an investigation of the gut, technically the human’s roots, it’s powerhouse and the dark birthplace of anxiety. In Maren Karlson’s paintings fluid bodies rove through an irrational realm, confidently growing from a pitch black vacuum ground. They could be our proxies when the sun goes down on Wake Island.