artspleen: THE VITALIST ECONOMY OF PAINTING CURATED BY ISABELLE GRAW @ GALERIE NEU / MD72, BERLIN

THE VITALIST ECONOMY OF PAINTING


The Vitalist Economy of Painting curated by Isabelle Graw Installation view, Galerie Neu, Berlin, 2018, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Neu, Berlin.

CURATED BY ISABELLE GRAW
AT GALERIE NEU AND MD72
15.09.2018 – 07.11.2018

Georgie Nettell, Torey Thornton, Ellen Cantor, Sarah Morris, Merlin Carpenter, Charline von Heyl, Valentina Liernur, Eric N. Mack, Christopher Wool, Amy Sillman

Jutta Koether, Josephine Pryde, René Magritte

Alex Israel, Wade Guyton, Eliza Douglas, Ken Okiishi, Rosemarie Trockel, Annette Kelm

Heimo Zobernig, KAYA (Kerstin Brätsch & Debo Eilers), Frank Stella

Avery Singer, Albert Oehlen, Jeanette Mundt, Jana Euler, Birgit Megerle

There's something incredibly charming about the idea that a painting could have its own soul. I have found myself wondering that, for example, looking at Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez or Giorgio De Chirichos’ surrealist compositions.
In the exhibition The Vitalist Economy of Painting, at Galerie Neu and MD72, is actually possible to experience the magic power of paintings by Georgie Nettell, Torey Thornton, Ellen Cantor, Sarah Morris, Merlin Carpenter, Charline von Heyl, Valentina Liernur, Eric N. Mack, Christopher Wool, Amy Sillman, Jutta Koether, Josephine Pryde, René Magritte, Alex Israel, Wade Guyton, Eliza Douglas, Ken Okiishi, Rosemarie Trockel, Annette Kelm, Heimo Zobernig, KAYA (Kerstin Brätsch & Debo Eilers), Frank Stella, Avery Singer, Albert Oehlen, Jeanette Mundt, Jana Euler, Birgit Megerle.
The extensive group show, curated by Isabelle Graw, professor of art theory and art history at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Frankfurt and co-founder of Text zur Kunst, is coming after the publication of “The Love of Painting. Genealogy of a Success Medium”.
The Love of Painting talks about painting not as a media or a genre but as a Formation in foucauldian words. As many artists say, paintings have a quasi-subject presence. In someway they have a life of their own indipendent from their authos but inherited by them.
The exhibition is developed into six chapters throughout the two venues.
In Big Joy (2004) of Charline von Heyl a huge brown spot is stretching over the canvas almost as if the painting made itself.
The trace of the artist is like a magical aura. But this magical aura is the trace of the artist as a creator that is not present. It is a trace of an absence. Albert Oehlen painting is an example of this delicate balance. Oehlen gave up to his privileged role as author to let an outside occasion ‘guides’ his hand: the event is the commercial exhibition. The Gold zur Gelb (2018) is a golden shape which reminds of a dollar symbol, establishing its own value as material and immaterial in the same time.
In Avery Singer’s Untitled (2018) the ethereal figure of the artist is appearing in a 4th- dimensional corner shaped perspective, of the surfaces covered in a red-blue grid.
A trace of the artist in her Persona, entangled in a network of private/public relations and social interactions is another important chapter of painting as a living formation. As is perceivable in Jeanette Mundt: Baby Like the Wind, (2018) where a big skull shape is the reproduction of a tattoo from the artist's partnere Ned Vena.
Time without the history of our actuality, mixes and remixes relationships, erases networks, forgets and returns the same and always different.
The canon of painting presented by Graw finds a very important aspect in the direct contamination with reality; the world outside the painting is directly entering into the surface of art as a re-juvinating element.
Jutta Koether in Isabelle Bild #3 (2018), reproduced an image of the media: Angela Merkel looking thoughtfully at a painting of Monet the day of Trump’s inauguration. The reenactment in the painting shows Isabelle Graw in Merkel's place, but with flashy pink shoes, her back to the news. The viewer is forced to look at the painting into the painting, at the curator's back, mirroring the reality.
Birgit Megerle "Recreation" (2018), a girl, lying on a bed, looking through the painting, straight to the spectator is breaking the distance between reality and painting. The painting is at the same time truth and fiction.
In the exhibition the vitalistic energy is building up a structure that puts the artist in a special position respect to the consumerist economy. An artist is the one who can elude the yoke of the production chain but at the same time remain an active producer of the company.
Rosemarie Trockel’ s “Color assistant, (2018) embodies this tension with a true-lue-coarse-knit woolen fabric that is covering the true painting.
Anette Kelm's Red Stripes 1, (2018), shows the illusion and imperfection of reality through the contamination between of painting and photography.

Ken Okiishi, gesture/data ( feedback ), (2015), Heimo Zobering ohne Titel (1991), black box, KAYA (Kerstin Bratsch & Debo Eilers) drape Procession [Jake] (2017), and Frank Stella, Dawidgrodek I, (1971), show how extanded is the relation between painting with different media.
Stella's painting is from the series "Polish Village". It get his name after a synagogue destroyed by the Nazi. Stella presents a three dimensional composition in which different geometrical figures are matched together. Only the title points to an historical event while the funky composition is almost acting as a detonator.
The vitalist force (Bergson) at the origin of the painting releases an irrational fold that, characteristic of contemporary decadence, may also holds back the individual freedom.

The Vitalist Economy of Painting curated by Isabelle Graw
Installation view, Galerie Neu, Berlin, 2018, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Neu, Berlin.