Existenzmaximum
| painting
| painting
at: Architecture for the Poor
media: acrylic on canvas
year: 2025
size: 122.0 cm × 82.0 cm (framed)
price: on request, buy here︎
Existenzminimum—a term coined by Walther Gropius at the Bauhaus – sought to define the essential threshold of human living: the least space, light, and dignity required to sustain life in a “just" society. It was a vision of modest sufficiency, not deprivation. In contrast, Existenzmaximum marks the grotesque upper limit: a lifestyle swollen with excess, built on the backs of the underpaid and overworked, where tech moguls like Jeff Bezos chase record profits while grinding labor rights to dust. In Minima Moralia, Adorno reflects on the tension between material conditions and human dignity. He critiques how even the bare minimum – Existenzminimum – has become a form of deprivation under capitalist systems, where the “minimum” is no longer a humane standard but a means of control and austerity. In this painting of a living room– bloated with Victorian Age objects – the excess is depicted, but is suggesting an utterly empty space of Existenz.
media: acrylic on canvas
year: 2025
size: 122.0 cm × 82.0 cm (framed)
price: on request, buy here︎
Existenzminimum—a term coined by Walther Gropius at the Bauhaus – sought to define the essential threshold of human living: the least space, light, and dignity required to sustain life in a “just" society. It was a vision of modest sufficiency, not deprivation. In contrast, Existenzmaximum marks the grotesque upper limit: a lifestyle swollen with excess, built on the backs of the underpaid and overworked, where tech moguls like Jeff Bezos chase record profits while grinding labor rights to dust. In Minima Moralia, Adorno reflects on the tension between material conditions and human dignity. He critiques how even the bare minimum – Existenzminimum – has become a form of deprivation under capitalist systems, where the “minimum” is no longer a humane standard but a means of control and austerity. In this painting of a living room– bloated with Victorian Age objects – the excess is depicted, but is suggesting an utterly empty space of Existenz.
