Wilhelm Sasnal
dal 3/9/2009 al 9/1/2010
Segnalato da
3/9/2009
Wilhelm Sasnal
K21 Kunstsammlung, Dusseldorf
The first comprehensive presentation of his work outside Poland
Approximately 75 pictures will make up this show which is organised around recurring central topics in his oeuvre.
This selection includes not only pictures of his family and friends but also historical figures. Further topics are the continuity of modernity in a constructed environment symbolised by flying, the depiction of intimate feelings, clichéridden views of Sasnal’s hometown Krakow, and also the ubiquity of the church in Poland.
Sasnal’s painting style developed during the first post-communist decade in Krakow.
At that time, he belonged to a group of like-minded artists who opposed academic tradition.
The group Ładnie (pretty) was made up of painters who were concerned with a realistic kind of art in the broadest sense which emulated popular imagery and everyday motifs in an intentionally simple way.
Consequently, Sasnal developed a large range of pictorial alternatives extending from methods used in illustrative commercial art to almost complete abstraction.
He is not an artist with a comprehensive pictorial programme aimed at continuing along a previously chosen route. On the contrary - every picture is a singular event. This applies not only to his chosen motifs, which are usually present as either discovered or self-made photographs, but also to his pictorial style.
Even when painting a succession of pictures on one topic, he does not aim for standardisation and re-identification. Instead, his interest lies in the impression of the specific picture in question. Intuition and spontaneity play an important role.
Sasnal transfers his generation’s particular kind of visual intelligence, which enables rapid distinctions between heterogeneous images, to the medium of painting.
Image: Untitled, 2009, Oil on canvas, 180 x 220 cm, Private Collection, London, © Wilhelm Sasnal
Opening: Friday, 4th September 2009, 9 p.m.
K21 Kunstsammlung
Nordrhein-Westfalen Ständehausstraße 1 40217 Düsseldorf
Opening Hours
Tuesdays to Fridays 10.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.
Saturdays and Sundays 11.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.
Closed on Mondays
1st Wednesday in the month 10.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m, with a KPMG Kunstabend (Art Evening) beginning at 6 p.m.