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Soyeon Schröder-Kim and Gerhard Schröder in front of a portrait of Schröder-Kim and Schröder: »Never go back«
Photo:
soyeonschroederkim / Instagram
At the beginning of the Emmy-winning Canadian TV series »Schitt's Creek«, the Rose family sits in their villa in front of a large-format family portrait in oils.
The tax authorities have just removed all the belongings of the wealthy entrepreneurial family from the property, because of a fraudulent financial advisor they have lost everything.
Their lawyer tells them that they only have one place to go: a town called Schitt's Creek, which Father Rose once gave his son on a whim.
Then the portrait is also carried out in the background.
At the end of the third season, as the Rose family begins to struggle to cope with life in poverty in the provinces, the huge family portrait reappears.
It is the only piece from the confiscated property that has not found a buyer.
It takes up the entire wall of the tiny motel room the Roses are staying in now.
The attitude in which they sit in front of it once again symbolizes the fall of the former successful people.
Real candles, lit in pairs
On this Christmas day, Soyeon Schröder-Kim's Instagram account once again caused a stir.
After a week ago a picture of her husband, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, in a suit and with a netted Christmas tree on his shoulder, had caused ridicule, the tree was unpacked and decorated on Christmas Eve to be viewed.
More attention than the tree decorations - white and red balls, real candles, some strangely lit in pairs - attracted the fact that in the picture the celebrating couple stands in front of a larger-than-life photo portrait of the couple.
One tweeter expressed his astonishment, another even called for discovering as many of the seven deadly sins as possible in the photo.
In contrast to envy, for example, curiosity is not one of them.
And since its launch in 2020, it's been a pleasure that the former Chancellor's wife's Instagram account has allowed so many glimpses into their interiors.
And so those who are interested have known the corner in which the black and white double portrait hangs since February 3rd.
During her quarantine after a corona disease, Soyeon Schröder-Kim made greeting cards while listening to Ed Sheeran's "Perfect" - they were happy days, Covid was mild and Russia had not yet invaded Ukraine.
Other Instagram posts have already shown other works of art that Schröder and Schröder-Kim have decorated their premises with.
Last Christmas, for example, this photograph of the couple was seen at a reception of sorts, the artistic perspective of which shows their traditional-looking robes from behind in the foreground, but in the background, in the mirror image, both of them in a dignified pose from the front.
Yes, small and in the background, but the allusion to the mythical Narcissus falling in love with his reflection is unmistakable (and there's an uncomplicated perspective of the image in the Schröder-Kim household too).
And in the already legendary autograph card synchronous writing picture from October 2020, two busts can also be seen on the left, which apparently represent the heads of the two.
This collection of Schröder portraits is a little reminiscent of that one aunt who nobody really knows what to give her.
And because you've noticed that she collects turtles or owls or something like that, they always give her turtle figures or owl pictures.
With Gerd you know: He is always happy about a picture of Gerd!
He has enough artists in his acquaintance.
As head of government, Schröder's reputation as the »opening chancellor« preceded him; he basked in his friendship with artists, especially with the so-called painter princes.
He had Jörg Immendorff immortalize him in gold for the portrait gallery of former officials in the Chancellery.
13 minutes of patience
When after Russia's attack on Ukraine the Gazprom lobbyist Schröder didn't say a word distancing himself from Vladimir Putin, some of his special privileges as ex-Chancellor were revoked.
In this context, CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt called for consideration to be given to “whether his portrait should not be hung up in the chancellery”.
The parish council of the Marktkirche in Hanover also wanted nothing more to do with the church window by his artist friend Markus Lüpertz, which Schröder had donated.
(In the meantime, the donations have been rededicated to Ukrainian refugees, but the window is supposed to be installed on Reformation Day 2023).
For the article in the New York Times, in which Schröder said, "I don't do mea culpa" - atonement for political mistakes is not his thing - the newspaper also had the ex-politician photographed.
"My most difficult portrait to date," said photographer Laetitia Vançon of the session;
Schröder's patience was over after 13 minutes.
The art historian Wolfgang Ullrich wrote about one of the motifs from the session, on which Schröder is sitting in front of a Schröder portrait by Markus Lüpertz: »Sometimes a photo turns out so unfavorably for the person being photographed that one assumes that she was in on it from the start met with resentment, even set a trap.«
Guelph saying as account motto
So is it a coincidence that Schröder, a friend of Putin, shows such enthusiasm for his own image?
Isn't personality cult often a side effect of authoritarian rule?
However, we do not know whether the Russian dictator also has the famous pictures of himself on horseback or shirtless fishing in his private rooms.
Nils Minkmar recently wrote in the »Süddeutsche Zeitung« that »a personality cult is never a good sign«.
The countries where people think they are happiest are countries whose politicians are almost completely unknown outside their borders.
Minkmar quotes the writer Vladimir Nabokov, who recommended that "portraits of rulers should never be larger than a postage stamp".
The author expressed his thoughts on the occasion of the presentation of the new chancellor portrait by Konrad Rufus Müller, who photographed all the heads of government in the Federal Republic, now also Olaf Scholz.
Müller also published a book of Schröder photographs in 2003.
We know from Soyeon Schröder-Kim's Instagram account that Schröder's also has a series of portraits of Müller's chancellor hanging on the wall behind the desk above a bookshelf.
The double portrait of the couple behind the Christmas tree is aesthetically related to Müller's chancellor portraits - here too in black and white, here too the camera gets very close to the faces.
And it's considerably larger than a postage stamp.
After all, Soyeon Schröder-Kim and Gerhard Schröder refrained from a joint Christmas speech this year, as in the two previous years, in which Schröder-Kim expressed good wishes and Schröder appealed to community spirit and solidarity.
But in principle, the Guelph motto, which Soyeon Schröder-Kim puts in front of her account, obviously still applies to the couple: "Nunquam retrorsum🍀" - in English: "Never back".
Schröder has filed a lawsuit against the Bundestag for the withdrawal of privileges, he is relaxed about the SPD's party expulsion process, and his wife is praying in Moscow.
Never back?
The impoverished Rose family from »Schitt's Creek« comes to a completely different conclusion when they look at their family portrait.
"It doesn't fit," says mother Moira Rose, who is otherwise so assertive, unexpectedly: "And I don't just mean the size."
The family decides to dispose of the picture;
it lands on the bulky waste between plastic chairs and other odds and ends.
Father Rose's comment: "It's not always good to hold on to your past."