Laokoon I

1989
Acrylic on wood
135 x 115 cm
On request

The model for Waske’s Laocoon group is the famous marble sculpture from the Hellenistic period of ancient Greek art (323 BC – 31 AD), which can be admired today in the Vatican Museums. It depicts the Trojan priest Laocoon and his two sons being tied up, strangled and bitten to death by two snakes. Hellenistic sculpture has long been admired for the realism of its anatomy and for the variety of expression in the faces and figures: a beaten, a suffering and an escaping figure….
Waske transforms the original work into a surrogate group studded with dog heads, fighting with Munich Weißwürstel instead of snakes.
“Laokoon I” (1989) “is a real Munich work …”, Waske said at the time,  shortly before an exhibition at Haus der Kunst. But the Munich jury was  against the “fight for the Weißwurst”, which later received the 1st prize  from the Royal Hubertus Club in Belgium.