NIGHT ON EARTH
Heiner Altmeppen, Haus, 1979, Öl auf Papier auf Sperrholz, 81 x73cm
Moholy-Nagy Galerie
Collegium Hungaricum Berlin
Dorotheenstrasse 12 / 10117 Berlin
Curated by Uwe Goldenstein
February 12 – April 12, 2015
Opening speech by Prof. Martin Deppner, Hamburg
Heiner Altmeppen, Adam Magyar, Aron Demetz, Alexander Tinei, Nicola Samorì
Attila Szűcs, Radu Belcin, Adam Bota, Joseba Eskubi, Alexander Timofeev among others
Nicola Samorì, La Spada, 2012, oil on wood, 200 x 150cm
Steffi Stangl, Tropfen, 2008-14, machine, 230 x 30 x 50cm
Aron Demetz, Die Verlockung des Sichtbaren, 2014, lime wood
115 x 47 x 30cm / Adam Magyar, Stainless, video
NIGHT ON EARTH rejects a self-surpassing, nearly incapacitated present, and a production of art that is only capable of reflecting our time at the same levels in arbitrary directions, and which is thus happy to cite the falsely understood and all-devouring posture of “anything goes” that was once proclaimed as postmodern. Instead, the artists of this exhibition are united by a consciousness of the reflection of the tradition of European Realism. They deliberately update the arthistorical capacity to embroil of their motifs and styles, and ultimately the reception of time. They create a counter-world, a place for the indeterminate, for reflexive concentration that creates space for the consideration of the regressive processes that are of necessity allied with melancholy, loss, nightmare, destruction, a trance state. This night side of reason calls out for an artist who knows how to incorporate the movements of art history, and who at the same time insists upon his nocturnal, carefully reflected, imaginative and remote world. Insisting upon finding reality by establishing boundaries that also cannot be overcome by technical processes and thus proving themselves to be resistant against simulation and medial repurposing. The rejection of our constantly and brilliantly illuminated world thus strengthens us in the attempt to retire to the refuge of the night, into a forest full of the referential possibilities of art. Symbolically ramified, in a mood of contemplation, submerging into a mysterious silence, the protected gaze can lose itself in the unique imagination of the artist expressed in a work.
Uwe Goldenstein
Alexander Tinei, Blue Nose, 2011, 40 x 60cm, oil on canvas
Attila Szűcs, Living Room in the Kádár Villa, 2014, oil on canvas, 190 x 240cm