Heribert C. Ottersbach

Haim Chanin Fine Arts, New York

The exhibit features six acrylic paintings on canvas, eleven gouaches on paper and a selection of fourteen delicate pencil sketches. The works gathered, completed between 2001 and 2002, present the painter's sharp vision of modern life and contemporary art.

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Heribert C. Ottersbach

Haim Chanin Fine Arts is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in New York of German painter Heribert C. Ottersbach. The exhibit, on view from January 23 through March 22, 2003, features six acrylic paintings on canvas, eleven gouaches on paper and a selection of fourteen delicate pencil sketches. The works gathered, completed between 2001 and 2002, present the painter's sharp vision of modern life and contemporary art. Ottersbach is not solely a talented artist but also a keen social analyst.

Ottersbach deconstructs and reassembles photographic images to create dramatic paintings composed of stark contrasting shapes. The works bare the hand of the craftsman deft in the language and technique of painting: on the apparently monochromatic surfaces is a rich and subtle tonal variation. In the manner of Richter, Ottersbach photographs his surroundings and culls visual material from current and historical printed matter. He uses digital collage to combine the found images into carefully balanced compositions to be transferred onto the final support, either paper or canvas. The act of painting is crucial to Ottersbach, since the action of the hand challenges the distance seemingly created by the intervention of the machine.

Born in KÃ¶ln in 1960, Ottersbach was marked by the fall of the Berlin wall and by those episodes in German politics that are considered history-in-the-making. For the painter, the fall of the wall represented the end of the utopia of Modernism. It is around 1989 that Ottersbach begins to use documentary material in his work. Unlike his German predecessor, Ottersbach employs images from the past not as a corroboration of History, but to question the postulates of modernity. The process of cutting, enlarging, and superposing images, mimics the multiplicity of events and perspectives that intervene in the creation of the fabric of history.

Ottersbach uses images that are familiar to the viewer, either from the mass media as in Ramallah or from personal experience as in Garbage or Depot. Yet, the apparently real landscapes are a fabrication of the artist. Furthermore, the images take on their full cultural significance, their true value, only in relationship to the observer's interpretations. They have as many meanings as there are viewers since the meaning depends on individual experiences. Ottersbach both recuperates a historical moment and actively intervenes in the writing of a new story.

Among Ottersbach's extensive list of one-man exhibitions are those at StÃ¤dtische Galerie Museum Regensburg, Kunstverein Mannheim, Galerie Ernst Hilger, Frankfurt, Galerie Bodo Niemann, Berlin, Aschenbach Galerie, Amsterdam, Kunsthalle OsnabrÃ¼ck, Projektraum, Berlin, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, KÃ¶ln, and Kunstmuseum DÃ¼sseldorf. His works are part of international collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum Ludwig, KÃ¶ln, Getty Center, Los Angeles, National Gallery, Washington, National Gallery, Canberra and The Jewish Museum, New York, among others. Ottersbach's work has been the subject of several books and has been included in DuMont's Arts Encyclopedia of the 20th Century (2000) and in Art in Germany since 1945 (2002).

Haim Chanin Fine Arts is located at 210 Eleventh Avenue, 2nd floor, between 24th and 25th Streets, in the heart of New York's Chelsea art district. Dominique Haim Chanin, founder and director of Haim Chanin Fine Arts, introduces an ambitious international contemporary program to the New York art world by premiering established artists from Europe and Latin America in her gallery. Following the exhibition by Heribert C. Ottersbach, Haim Chanin Fine Arts will present works by Basque artist Jorge Oteiza, from March 27 to May 31, 2003.

Media inquiries:
Ariadna Capasso
Haim Chanin Fine Arts
T: 646-230-7200
F: 646-230-7989

Haim Chanin Fine Arts
210 Eleventh Avenue, 2nd Floor
(between 24th and 25th Street)
New York, NY 10001
Tel: 646-230-7200
Fax: 646-230-7989

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