calendario eventi  :: 

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25/5/2011

Two exhibitions

Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover

Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys | Objects as Friends

The Belgian artists Jos de Gruyter (*1965 in Geel, lives in Brussels) and Harald Thys (*1966 in Wilrijk, lives in Brussels) are presenting at the kestnergesellschaft a new, 168-part photo series together with a video which surrounds the photographs like an audio-visual frame. In a space-encompassing exhibition-display entitled »Objects as Friends«, they stage a parallel world which is closed within itself. In their collaboration which has lasted more than twenty years, de Gruyter and Thys have realized numerous videos and photographs. Their oeuvre circles obsessively around two poles: on the one hand, around the human being, his behavior in groups and as an individual; on the other hand, around the world of things, inanimate objects. In their joint works, the two artists strive deliberately and uncompromisingly for precise stagings with a few selected elements until a nightmarish, artificial world arises before the eyes of the viewer. They conceive of the respective exhibition design as a part of their artistic work: Wall colors and texts, as well as partitions, become material for the perfect staging of spaces which fully enfold the viewer and give rise to a total work of art.

This is also the case in two halls on the ground floor of the kestnergesellschaft. Presented on twenty-one white partitions are 168 photographs whose format and coloration match so precisely and on which each individual dust particle is so exactly represented that the precision changes into eeriness. To be seen in front of the dull gray background are sharply outlined objects which are grouped into still lifes. The genre of the still life customarily relates to the transience of life and thereby celebrates at the same time the vital and finite – here, however, everything has been extinguished. Things such as knick-knack figures, a removed bicycle seat, wigs, or clumps of clay are situated in an unreal, harsh, bright light which captures every detail mercilessly. The objects come from flea markets, one-euro shops, and similar gathering places for discarded, useless, and superfluous objects whose final destination in a waste incinerating plant can already be anticipated. Ever since the beginning of the twentieth century, this alternate aspect of the beautiful, variegated world of consumer goods has offered material to artists, beginning with the Surrealists all the way to Jason Rhoades, who explore its symbolic and formal qualities.

The staging at the kestnergesellschaft has a further culmination with a video in which a matter-of-fact computer voice reflects upon objects and their existence in the world. In their videos, de Gruyter & Thys have developed a visual language which is characterized by an extreme slowing-down of language and gestures and which works with amateur actors in simple settings. Most recently, the duo has replaced the actors with dilletantishly assembled Styrofoam dolls and thereby reached an apex in their video art of the absurd. The exhibition »Objects as Friends« now creates the metaphorical portrait of a world of things in which human beings are no longer present. After their participation in the 5th berlin biennale (2008), »Art Unlimited« (2010) in Basel, and solo exhibitions at such institutions as the Kunsthalle Basel (2010), the kestnergesellschaft is honoring the creative output of Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys with their first solo exhibition at an institution in Germany, which may subsequently be seen at the Culturgest (Porto, Portugal) and at the Provincial Museum voor moderne Kunst (Ostende, Belgium). Taking place in parallel to the show in Hannover is an exhibition by de Gruyter & Thys at the Neuer Aachener Kunstverein.

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André Butzer
Probably the best abstract Painter in the World

The artist André Butzer (*1973 in Stuttgart, lives in Rangsdorf near Berlin) is presenting at the kestnergesellschaft nine large-format works which have been created since 2009 and are being exhibited for the first time. He has dedicated his entire career to painting, also during periods when it was once again considered to be dead. His oeuvre gives rise to distinct polarization, summons up rejection as well as enthusiasm. Butzer became known with seemingly expressive paintings of comic-book-like figures which he called »Friedens-Siemense« and »Schande- und H-Menschen«, and which developed out of his investigation of German and US-American history, capitalism, and the world of children, as well as of consumer and pop culture. But Butzer does not consider himself to have a critical perspective. As a great fan of Henry Ford, he instead regards himself to be a factory owner whose products – namely his pictures – not only arise one out of the other but also, in accordance with the principle of repetition, can scarcely be distinguished from each other. In the succession, however, there are multifaceted works.

Also the works in the exhibition »Probably the best abstract Painter in the World« prove to be a version of the same pictorial strategy, even if it is based on different poles. Pictorial strategies, however, which do not play themselves off against each other: Butzer moves through forms which extend from geometrically minimal to wildly gestural, and in terms of color from pure and spread-out to smeared and pastose. The history and development of painting are constantly perceptible in the background. The use of these constant references to the history of painting is read by many as amusing and cynical, fueled not least by what are to some extent whimsical titles, such as the puzzling »Brandenburgische Spargelmalerei – Elektrischer Krieg – Neo-Cézannismus (Abstraktes Bild Nr. 27d)«, a work which may be seen at the kestnergesellschaft. Yet Butzer's undertaking is nothing other than a wrestling with the potentialities inherent to the medium of painting. The exhibition in Hannover represents a break in this creative output, for the artist does not want to continue to be compared with other painters and to be seen only in their succession. From a distance to himself, he describes himself in the third person as probably the best abstract painter. The work »Ich will erstmal 'ne Cola«, presented at the kestnergesellschaft for the first time, is intended to be understood as the beginning of a new development. Butzer calls all subsequently created works »N-Bilder« with reference to his optical utopia named »Nasaheim«.

Butzer already introduces the concept of »N«, or respectively of »Nasaheim«, as a fictitious site in the universe into his oeuvre early on (2001). »N« stands for a non-reachable site, for abstraction, a place where, for instance, »colors are stored«. The idea of this site is the expression of an individual but universally applicable theory of art which changes constantly in its concept and, in its complexity and autonomy, proves to be original and profound. In the development from initially figural motifs, Butzer more and more attains balanced and pure images and thereby, in accordance with his figure of thought, approaches the coordinate »N«. If, however, one cites a further statement of the artist, namely that painting is not based on ideas and ideals but instead represents a striving for something which one does not know and above all cannot realize, then the self-assertion formulated in the title opens up and becomes a challenging question addressed to the viewers, who must decide whether they in fact are faced with the best abstract painter in the world. Already in 2008, the kestnergesellschaft presented works by André Butzer in the group exhibition »Back to Black: Schwarz in der aktuellen Malerei«. Such institutions as the Kunsthalle Nürnberg and the Kunstverein Heilbronn have dedicated solo exhibitions to him, and he has participated in numerous international group exhibitions, for instance at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand in São Paulo, the Kunsthalle Hamburg, the Museum moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig in Vienna, or the Museum der Moderne Salzburg. Butzer's works may be found, among other places, in the collection of the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, in the collection of the University of Chicago, at the Musée d'art moderne carée d'art in Nîmes, and in the Collection of Modern Art of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Image: Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, Untitled (No. 01), 2010
c-print mounted on wood 48 x 60 cm
Courtesy Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin
© Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys

Press contact: Silke Janßen
fon +49 511 70120 16
fax + 49 511 70120 20
presse@kestnergesellschaft.de

Press preview Wednesday, May 25, 11 am | the artist will be present
Opening Thursday, May 26, 2010, 7 pm | the artist will be present

Kestnergesellschaft
Goseriede 11 - Hannover
opening hours Daily and on Holidays 11 am – 6 pm
Thursdays 11 am – 8 pm, Closed on Mondays
entrance fees single ticket 7 Euro, reduced single ticket 5 Euro
Free admission for members of the kestnergesellschaft, members of art associations listed in the ADKV, and children under the age of 14. With your ticket you can visit the exhibition as often as you like. Your ticket may also be used by somebody else.

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