Johannes Kahrs
dal 16/11/2006 al 9/2/2007
Segnalato da
16/11/2006
Johannes Kahrs
Parasol Unit, London
Lonely long meaningless way home. A series of paintings together with pastel and charcoal works on paper. He manipulates found imagery garnered from film stills, pictures from newspapers, and from personal photographs to depict human figures and their world in odd or unusual scenarios.
Lonely long meaningless way home
Having taken a quote from Franz Kafka for the title of his exhibition, in Lonely long
meaningless way home Kahrs will show a series of paintings together with
pastel and charcoal works on paper, both of which media are of equal
significance to him. Kahrs manipulates found imagery garnered from film
stills, pictures from newspapers, and from personal photographs to depict
human figures and their world in odd or unusual scenarios. Crucially, Kahrs
liberates existing images from their original meaning and via an intense
pursuit of detail he deftly re-establishes his initial fascination with the
image. His experimentation with the original form of the image sidesteps
hastily reductive interpretations and produces a sense of ambiguity.
The
compelling ambiguity evoked in Kahrs’ works is achieved through their
characteristic dark and uncanny atmosphere. Kahrs’ oeuvre is defined by a
highly developed relationship to the contingencies of light and the
contrast between light and dark. In his works on paper the shifting tones
and gradations of grey and black pastel emphasize the most expressive and
unresolved elements. Significantly, his paintings have no internal
illumination, the lack of which amplifies the mood and tension he conveys
through his mastery of thick dark paint. Along with the rigorous
manipulations and subversive qualities present in the works, Kahrs further
distances the viewer from the works by presenting them behind glass. The
works with their glazed surfaces throwing back any light simultaneously
hold the viewer in thrall.Johannes Kahrs provokes his audience with
paintings and drawings of dramatic scenes and imagery in which fact and
fiction collide and reality is manipulated into an intricate world of
concealment and mystery.
Catalogue with essays by Ziba de Weck Ardalan and Nicola Suthor.
Private View: 17 November 6-8 pm
Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art
14 Wharf Road - London
Opening hours: Tues-Sat, 10 am-6 pm