Farbe Konkret - Kunstverein Tiergarten, Berlin

Opening: 20. 11.2009

Duration: 20. 11.  - 30. 12.2009

Participating artists: Daniel Biesold, Pedro Boese, Jörg Bürkle, Christiane Conrad, Angela Dwyer, Susanne Jung, Oliver Lanz, Rebecca Michaelis, A. Paola Neumann, Sharman Riegger, Günter Scharein, Elisabeth Sonneck, Nicola Stäglich

Introduction: Prof. Dr. Matthias Bleyl

Farbe konkret provides an overview of current positions in non-representational painting in Berlin. The exhibition is less an attempt to take stock and less an attempt to outline a specific phenomenon in Berlin. Rather, it follows on from those concepts of contemporary painting that thematise colour not as a means but as an object. Farbe konkret brings current references into play and thus attempts to enrich the discussions on the tradition of colour painting and its further development.

In its synopsis of various artistic manifestations, the exhibition illustrates the current range and multi-layered differentiation of primarily colour-related ways of seeing and working. The works certainly present themselves as further developments of abstract painting, radical painting, constructive/concrete painting, gestural abstraction, colourfield painting and abstract expressionism, to name just a few of the better-known but nonetheless blurred historical manifestations. The exhibition thus shows works that do not shed light on the interface between colour and space, colour and object, colour and materiality, colour and content, etc., even though such issues can certainly play a role in the work of the participating artists. Rather, the reduction in the conditions and appearances of painting in this selection deals directly with colour and its immanent potential, its visual differentiations and interactions.

The restriction to the classic panel painting in particular functions as a matrix in terms of content and form in order to offer the viewer's comparative perception a surprising variety of concretions of painted colour. This encompasses a rich spectrum of different aspects: Monochromaticity such as relations of colours, properties of the paint surface in relation to light - translucency such as opacity through to reflection -, different aggregate states of painted colour from thin liquid pours through to pastose colour settings, but also manual aspects of the painting process and the resulting structures, rhythms and forms.

Last but not least, however, it is always about the expressive content of painting resulting from these factors and their specific combinations. The spectrum ranges from works that follow a self-referential approach to those that do not exclude or even intend references to content arising from the picture, although their effect is primarily based on the expressive power of the painted colour. Even in those works that are obviously further developments of certain traditions of colour painting, the approach is unprogrammatic and experimentally exploratory.

All in all, Farbe konkret opens up diverse and fascinating insights into the phenomenon of colour and presents selected positions from Berlin.

Text: Prof. Dr. Matthias Bleyl

Concept and curatorial work: Elisabeth Sonneck and Pedro Boese

Accompanying events:

27.11. 6 pm and 09.12. 6.30 pm: Guided tour of the exhibition with Elisabeth Sonneck and Pedro Boese

03.12. 8 pm: »Farbe konkret im Gespräch« with Dr. Wita Noack, Dr. Anne Marie Freybourg, Prof. Dr. Michael Fehr

Essay Der Sprung in der Schüssel von Prof. Dr. Matthias Bleyl, published in the brochure Farbe konkret.