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Beyond the Surface

Nevin Aladag, Carola Ernst, Gregor Hildebrandt, Anne Neukamp, Stefan Pfeiffer, Ekrem Yalcindag

Duration: October 06 to December 15, 2012

Curators: Zdenek Felix, Ludwig Seyfarth

The exhibition Beyond the Surface draws focus to multi-layered surfaces, in the truest sense of the word, and not only to those of paintings. Mixing or adding different materials, the relief-like application of paint, wiping or scraping away existing layers, or the deliberate assemblage of apparently heterogenous elements into collages: all of these are processes that charge the surface of an image with a physical presence that lacks the transparent screens that are almost ubiquitous in everyday life.
Computer programs can be used to layer planes or spaces on top of each other; everything can always be changed or erased, and in the process even the grandest of creative interventions can exist without recognizable traces. What happens on the surfaces of the pictures shown in this exhibition, however, remains more or less legible in the results.
Beyond the Surface is, on one hand, a reflection of the possibilities of painting today, but on the other hand, it also discusses material quality and states or conditions  beyond those of classic painting, as well as the question of the relationship between what can be experienced through the senses and what remains intangible.
Fresco-like, painted forms recalling robes or body surfaces and the schematic remains of layers of paint that have been removed (Anne Neukamp) are shown next to abstract, gestural elements of painting and drawing, which seem to be enmeshed in the surface, while at the same time opening up indeterminate spaces (Carola Ernst); installation-like paintings of different pieces of soap, depicted as if for a gallery of family portraits (Stefan Pfeiffer); multifaceted, shimmering surfaces made out of used tape from music cassettes (Gregor Hildebrandt); essentially luminous, round paintings, which, upon closer inspection turn out to be elaborately designed reliefs (Ekrem Yalcindag); and paintings and objects whose carefully sorted, collage compositions are based on the ornamentation from carpets of various provenances (Nevin Aladag).

Exhibition views

Accompanying program

, 7 pm

Painting and Film

with an intrduction by art and film theorist
Elke Kania, Cologne:
„The  Interference of still images (of painting) and cinematic aesthetic“
Elke Nebel shows „Gemalte Filme” and Johanna Reich „Video Paintings”
The subsequent discussion will be hosted by Ludwig Seyfarth

, 7 pm

Film Program by Markus Selg

Markus Selg, Storrada, 2011
Ben Rivers, Ah! Liberty, 2008
Kristina Chrastekova, Divoko a prudko zviera hladi (Wild und heftig streichelt sie das Tier), 2012
followed by a discussion with Markus Selg and Zdenek Felix

, 7 pm

In Love with the Surface

artist talk with Anne Neukamp and Gregor Hildebrandt
hosted by Zdenek Felix and Ludwig Seyfarth
 

Video about the exhibition

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