GROUP EXHIBITION

With works from established positions of the classic and post-war modern as well as from the contemporary range, we will show our special highlights in our Düsseldorf gallery rooms after this year’s shortened TEFAF in Maastricht. The works of art exhibited, in their various art historical classifications, each form the essence of their creator and his or her creative idea. This selection therefore juxtaposes several cabinet pieces.

Among them is an extraordinarily complex composition from Gerhard Richter‘s ‘Fuji’ series from 1996. With the squeegee technique used, Richter uses chance as an artistic process and constructs a unique colour overlay and complex, extremely finely divided structure on a small format.

A fundamental characteristic in the works of Heinz Mack is the combination of structure and dynamics. The structure is always irregular in itself–repetitive but different series result in a rhythm of rare variety. The rows, often created with the help of the squeegee, are thus no longer static, but dynamic. The small Dynamic Structure in this TEFAF-selection also shows that the gradual deviation from pure repetition, while maintaining a certain character, creates a vibration that shows a striking parallel to music.

Anselm Kiefer‘s poetic work Himmelspaläste (‘Celestial Palaces’) is inspired by Cabalistic mysticism, whose central aspect is the search for the vision of the Divine. There are various versions of Himmelspaläste, which Kiefer began in the late 1980s and which represents a departure from Kiefer’s engagement with the hitherto dominant theme of German identity. In this version of the Himmelspaläste, a tower-like building dominates the picture surface, which on the one hand appears archaic, but on the other hand is reminiscent of modern residential towers or skyscrapers. An important detail is the small, leaden plane, on whose wings the word ‘Merkaba’ can be read.

Another highlight is the small flower still life Fiori by Giorgio Morandi, which belongs to a group of works on which the artist worked in the 1940s. He chooses a medallion-like cut-out in the centre of the picture and concentrates on the bouquet, which stands out against a monochrome surface. His style touched on issues early on that Conceptual Art and Minimal Art would not address until decades later.

Rudolf Polanszky‘s Reconstructions form a very special position in the history of the material image. In order not to be influenced by preconceived notions, he assembles the most diverse materials and forms quasi accidentally and frees them from their actual usefulness in order to breathe a new structure and history into them. The material used in this work, mirror foil in combination with plexiglass and metal, also reflects almost the entire environment and thus creates an ever new composition.

Two special drawings by Marc Chagall, which were recorded on the frontispiece and the first page of the important graphic work Daphnis and Chloé, are also shown in this exhibition. They depict a pair of lovers and other symbols such as the billy goat and the cockerel–compositional elements that are characteristic of Chagall’s work throughout his life and can always be read as autobiographical. The light, seemingly effortless strokes of ink, watercolour and coloured pencil underline, as so often, the level of dreams and longings.