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Imagination Becomes Reality Part IV: Borrowed Images |
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An exhibition cycle focusing on the pictorial understanding of current art
Part IV: Borrowed Images André Butzer.Barnaby Furnas. Thomas Helbig. Wade Guyton & Kelley Walker. Ivan Morley. Markus Selg. Thaddeus Strode. June 26 – September 30, 2006 Guided tours through the exhibition: 11.30 am, Saturdays July 1 and August 5. Please telephone ahead. Imagination Becomes Reality is a series of exhibitions conceived and planned by Ingvild Goetz to offer visitors an opportunity to contrast and compare works of contemporary art, enabling them to discover the wide variety of forms and techniques of painting. Borrowed Images, the fourth of the five-part exhibition series, shows the works of ten artists from the collection who were born between 1964 and 1974. The artists involved are André Butzer, Olaf Breuning, Barnaby Furnas, Thomas Helbig, Wade Guyton & Kelley Walker, Mark Leckey, Ivan Morley, Markus Selg, and Thaddeus Strode. What is common to their working methods is the use of source material deriving from a pool of images accessible to everyone – printed matter, TV, the Internet, ordinary media, the world of consumption, and the history of art. However, their works are not about appropriating this initial material or citing it in recognizable form. Each of the artists has fashioned an individual style of his own from it. In this respect, the ‘borrowed images’ of the title is not to be understood as it would be in the context of Pop Art or Appropriation Art, but as referring to something new created by the artist’s imagination out of borrowed images, with a nod in the direction of the series title Imagination Becomes Reality. The pictures, sculptures and videos in this exhibition differ stylistically and in production techniques. The latter embrace a spectrum ranging from classic drawings and overpaintings with oil, acrylics and watercolors through to silkscreen prints and inkjet prints, with all kinds of intermediate forms on the way. Technically, the videos are produced in the traditional manner or make use of found material or computer animations compiled into video collages. The fourth of the Imagination Becomes Reality exhibitions reinforces the impression that despite the equal status accorded to all artistic media, painterly strategies continue to take a key role in sculpture, photography and even video. Then again, painting itself has long breached its classic confines in a very undogmatic fashion so as to give rise to new pictorial visions that are exciting and unusual not only in subject matter but also technically. List of artists: André Butzer (*1973 in Stuttgart, lives and works in Berlin) In his pictorial visions, Berlin-born André Butzer mixes trivial and historically important references. Inspired for example by Walt Disney, he uses figures he has created himself as synonyms for historical personages from the Third Reich and other historical eras, though his interest is not in taking sides or showing that these people acted well or badly. Both formally and in communicative power they are scarcely distinguishable. Only a written caption or reference in the picture itself indicates familiar personalities and places. Olaf Breuning (*1970 in Schaffhausen (CH), lives and works in Zurich and New York) Swiss artist Olaf Breuning creates a completely bizarre world of monsters, psychopaths, or extra-terrestrial creatures. His films confront the viewer with these figures in stories of exuberant fantasy, full of humor and hidden allusions. The latter relate to clichés of current or historical film productions that are firmly lodged in the collective consciousness and are familiar to everyone. His installations and photos often look like fragments or stills from these films. Barnaby Furnas (*1973 in Philadelphia, lives and works in New York) New York artist Barnaby Furnas creates bizarre worlds in his works in which content and presentation are in stark contrast. At first glance, we feel spontaneously drawn to his colorful pictures, and it is only when we look closer that we see blood spurting from his figures and bullet holes peppering them. The bloodbath thereby arising is so artful and sophisticated that beauty drives out alarm. Furnas takes us on a high-speed, potted version of American history that comes across as simple television entertainment, which is indeed the source of his ideas. Wade Guyton & Kelley Walker (*1972 in Hammond, Indiana/*1969 in Georgia, live and work in New York) New Yorkers Wade Guyton and Kelley Walker, who work both as individuals and as a team, use the computer as a “painting machine.” Their works are based mostly on found material from art, the media and advertising. Their pictures are derived from the unlimited repertory of images in the brand esthetics of advertising, but also from the Internet and other digital media, and are often printed directly onto the canvas. Guyton/Walker explore the phenomenon of pop and media culture in a contemporary context, often drawing on some of Warhol’s ideas. Thomas Helbig (*1967 in Rosenheim, lives and works in Berlin) Thomas Helbig uses objects that he finds in junk markets for his sculptures and pictures. Whereas in his sculptures he uses construction foam, plaster, or paint to turn individual parts into unfamiliar entities, his paintings remain enigmatic and ambiguous. Though the monochrome overpaintings of the artist’s existing pictures are likewise reminiscent of enigmatic figures and animals, the viewer is left wondering what he is actually looking at on the canvas. Mark Leckey (*1964 in London, lives and works in London) English artist Mark Leckey finds his material in the streets of London, being inspired by the lifestyle and vitality of the metropolis. The subject matter he draws on is taken not just from contemporary life but also includes film stills from the 1970s and 1980s, which are reassembled into new film clips like montage. His fictional character LondonAtella is a latter-day man-about-town, conquering the city in dream-like sequences, with huge steps and leaps. Technical interventions and music help to produce pace, dynamism and endless parties on the projection screen. Ivan Morley (*1966 in Burbank, California, lives and works in Los Angeles) Ivan Morley is a storyteller whose diverse works are inspired by Californian myths and cities. The artist combines a very wide range of materials to formulate his visions, but instead of applying contemporary techniques, he resorts to tried and tested traditional working methods – he knits, embroiders, joins together, or paints, thereby creating an artistic approach entirely his own. Markus Selg (*1974 in Singen, lives and works in Berlin) The works of Markus Selg often turn out to be interactions between pictures, sculptures, and architectural sets. His subject matter is history, and its symbols and archetypes. Monumental architecture and dramatic scenes (often borrowed from old films and stage sets), stories, and myths likewise provide a fund of material that the well-read artist draws on and finally composes into images, principally on his computer. Theatrical landscapes without space and time are the result, in which elements of horror and comic associations are transformed into glittering but sometimes also alarming-looking visions of the future. Thaddeus Strode (*1964 in Santa Monica, California, lives and works in Pasadena, California) American artist Thaddeus Strode produces large-format works depicting magical-looking dream worlds inhabited by strange creatures. Strode’s artistic strength lies in combining a variety of currents and styles. A fantastic universe is revealed in which the sinister and the surreal, the grotesque, and the farcical enter into a symbiosis with caricature. Thus fragments from mythology, fairy tales, and science fiction mingle with standard images from the world of comics and pop culture. But there is also a trace of black humor in his pictures, which leave much scope for associations and interpretations. Catalogue: Imagination Becomes Reality Part IV: Borrowed Images http://www.sammlung-goetz.de/index2.php?lang=en&pn=publ&id=33 Press review (selection):
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| Photo Credits: 1-7) Courtesy Sammlung Goetz, München; 1) Roman März, Berlin 2) Wilfried Petzi, München; 3) Larry Lamay, New York
© Goetz Collection, Authors and Artists |
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