Group exhibition IMAGINE SPACE, Galerie artmark (2017)
Not only do the pictures in this series share a rigorous smallness, but they also consistently remain limited to achromatic black. For this group of works, the artist’s well-tried strategy of imbuing his monolithic panels with intellectual profundity and of ventilating philosophical problems through inscriptions has been suspended. Here, the surface of the picture as such has been declared the field of action. What is striven for and what happens is depicted; within a rigid system, the individual works unfold, contemplating and revealing themselves.
Critically operating with ideas related to such concepts as image, surface, flatness, scale, volume, three-dimensionality, and space, the artist’s considerations have resulted in reliefs of graceful beauty, of exuberant abundance and opulence.
Precisely cut rectangles seem to be allowed to develop lives of their own. Having been removed from their flatness, they are carried to a point of tension, to structure and spatial depth. What is shown here is a prospering rebellion of three-dimensionality that may well be regarded as a dynamic work in progress. At least this is suggested by the title, for these ideas are yet to evolve and emerge, as they are in the process of unfolding – even if, for this very purpose, the surfaces of the pictures fold back on themselves, this does not represent a contradiction.
This interpretation of an autonomous life, of a surprising volition behind flatness, has been underscored by the artist in the form of a rebellious eleventh work in which he revisits terminological concepts, proposing shifts in perspective and motivating formulas: discontent also remains a reliable source of potential, of the perception of truth and its implementation, outside of artistic creation.
The series displayed at artmark galerie presents samples drawn from the unlimited possibilities of inflection. And yet this work, in defying arbitrariness because of its seriality, points to a purposeful and meaningful endeavour: in art, however lucid it may be, one must always expect stubborn questions to arise. Nevertheless, these works do not seek to hide the enjoyable and pleasurable aspects of both creation and perception.
What if a picture refuses to be flat?
(Translation: Brigitte Willinger)