Werner Nekes: ‘Der Tag des Malers is about the painter’s gaze at his female model, or about how voyeurism is transformed into culture. It is an erotic adventure film in which the theme is the viewer himself. The film shows what La belle noiseuse doesn’t want to show: the locked in and + +Unknown Masterpiece”. It is a stroll through the painter’s world of images as he looks at the female nude. Associations are possible with paintings by Dürer, Marey, Matisse and Seurat, Courbets “Origins of the World+-+, Duchamp’s “L’étant donnés” and many other works of art. These associations are meant as such. The artistic forms of expression of painting, video and computer images mingle in the film. Unusual angles make the film an adventure for the eyes of the viewer.’It was the well-known art critic and writer John Berger who first made it clear that a painted nude is a possession as well as an aesthetic object. If someone buys a painting of a naked woman, that deed is the manifestation of a power relationship between the owner and the canvas and the model. Using several visual tricks, Werner Nekes shows that in looking at the picture of a naked woman, the viewer is inevitably involved.
