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24/5/2007

Christian Achenbach

Wendt+Friedmann Galerie, Berlin

Rock'n roll with kraken

The world in Christian Achenbach’s images is a pleasantly bleak one, where an atmosphere of comfortable familiarity actually brings light into the darkness.

Here we see blurry depictions of wasted rockers battering away on their instruments, disorderly apartments where cats are jumping around, and flabby kraken sea monsters that stare out through their huge eyes at the observer. Black and grey tones inhabit these paintings like the smoky haze created by some sweet drug; and chunky, black fingers hammer away on the keys of a synthesiser that appears in a number of the works. What is going on here?

This young painter has recently collaborated with Jim Avignon and others – making music, painting and holding exhibitions. This went well, and Achenbach managed to make a living from his small, comic- like paintings, but he wanted more and went to study under Daniel Richter at the Universität der Künste (UdK, Berlin University of the Arts). He managed to negotiate the hurdles at this long-established art school and, when Richter moved away, he transferred to Anselm Reyle, under whom he completed his Meisterschüler (graduating from a master class) earlier this year.

In common with the painter Andreas Golder, whom Achenbach met at the UdK, Achenbach practises a style which uses thick bands and bulges of colour: poured or splashed oil paint disrupts the illusion of the image and gives off dynamic vibrations. And when this clamour sometimes recedes, then Achenbach can also create something which is simultaneously melancholic and humorous, such as the arrival of a battered car in a forest at night.

As with many other painters, Achenbach too wears the influence of his favourite filmmakers on his sleeve, meaning that Scorsese or even Lynch sometimes drop by in his works to say “hello”. Achenbach always wants to mix these influences together with challenges with have more to do with painting and experimenting – an approach familiar from artists like Albert Oehlen or Sigmar Polke, both of whom Achenbach admires.

The essence of many of Achenbach’s paintings is perhaps best captured by the title of one Achenbach’s series of paintings: “Hey, I’ve been at this petrol station before! (Ey, an dieser Tankstelle war ich doch schon mal)”.

Opening, Friday, 25 May, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Wendt+Friedmann Galerie
Zehdenicker Str. 13 - 10119 Berlin-Mitte
Free admission

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