EVA ALTER / AWST & WALTHER / WOLFGANG BETKE / JENS BIRKEMOSE / FRITZ BORNSTÜCK / GREGOR GLEIWITZ / PHILIP GRÖZINGER / MARC VON DER HOCHT / PETER JAP LIM / LARS NØRGÅRD / JAN PLEITNER / ELMAR VESTNER

Curated by Gregor Gleiwitz

The term Ikarier refers to acrobats who use their feet to twirl and juggle objects or people in the air above them while lying on their backs. When reversed, quick taps with the feet are used to catapult the object into the air. This practice offers the audience an ever-changing perspective on the flying. In the group show IKARIER the visitor is being introduced to different artistic positions, each representing an area of tension between the abstract and the figurative.

In the front space of the gallery, paintings by PHILIP GRÖZINGER, EVA ALTER, WOLFGANG BETKE and MARC VON DER HOCHT explore abstract spaces, whereas, ELMAR VESTNER deprives his motifs of their figuration and ambience. LARS NØRGÅRD exposes futuristic forms from abstract patterns. The titles of JENS BIRKEMOSE`’s works reduce the paintings to what they are – Maleri. JAN PLEITNER’s gestural application of colour gives the impression of a striving towards transcending the canvas, whereas the colourful paper works by PETER JAP LIM seem to fold and curl into new forms. AWST & WALTHER and FRITZ BORNSTÜCK use their fingers as painting tools whereby identity markers are brought into the abstract works as recognizable figures.  

In the back space of the gallery, the Berlin based artist GREGOR GLEIWITZ (*1977 in Poland) shows his work “April 2012”. The painting was completed for the exhibition Made in Germany Zwei in Hannover and is now presented in Berlin for the first time. For the current exhibit, the arrangement of the gallery has been changed in order to create a space in which the visitor and the work are left alone. The painting spreads out in a panoramic fashion – over ten meters on the wall – inviting the visitor to a visual experience: Colour, contour and form seem to meld into shimmering creatures and landscapes, only then again to vanish into the indefinable. If one can speak of figures, none is completed or finished but seem to have solidified during the emergence or to dissolvement into ever new figurations.

“Oscillating between figurativeness and non-figurativeness, without ever coming to rest on the safe bank of the abstract form or identifiable figure, Gregor Gleiwitz’ art demands a different way of seeing.”     

Roland Meyer