In Schöne Jugend (2026), Armin Boehm merges Thomas Mann and Ursula von der Leyen into a single, impossible portrait. Mann’s historical image meets the contemporary political image of von der Leyen, whose face is partially concealed by fabric. Rather than depicting two individuals, Boehm constructs a third character from fragments of both. The work becomes a meditation on identity as something inherited, reproduced and continually reconstructed through images.
Boehm describes the recurring transformation of motifs as central to his practice:

“This process of revisiting and isolating motifs is central to my practice. Faces, flowers, and other elements often first appear within larger, crowded compositions before being extracted and given space to exist on their own.”