Mimesis, the interpretive reproduction of nature, was long considered to be the most important duty of art. Theorists of all epochs, referring back to Aristotle, called upon artists to feel and understand the chaos and order of the natural world in such a way that meaning suddenly became visible there where none could be recognized before. Robert Elfgen's artistic work also focuses in an unusually direct manner on this task which, with the advent of modernism, was pushed to the side and neglected. In recent years, Elfgen has created a unique œuvre in which he applies complex artisanal techniques to found pieces from nature and from his everyday life, and assembles them into an atmospherically charged, intensely personal form of bricolage. The realities of art and life come together in this position. Art becomes nature, nature becomes art.
Read MoreRobert Elfgen's technically innovative bricolage-art is of course not devoid of art-historical reference. His associative treatment of objets trouvés recalls Marcel Duchamp; his strict conceptual logic is reminiscent of Rosemarie Trockel, who taught his masterclass. And clear allusions to the Romantic pictorial language of painters such as William Turner or Caspar David Friedrich, along with traces of a laconicism coming from Surrealism and Pop Art can be identified in the works brought together for this exhibition. But with his artisanal investigations, Elfgen achieves something attained by only a few artists – the creation of an utterly personal, unique cosmos. A cosmos that opens up a series of spaces of biographical, phenomenological, and psychoanalytical interpretation. A cosmos in which nature and civilization merge into each other, and which enables the viewer to see the world in a new and subtle manner.
Robert Elfgen studied first with John Armleder at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig before transferring to the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he completed his studies as a master scholar of Rosemarie Trockel. He lives and works in Cologne. His works will be shown in a solo exhibition at the Oldenburger Kunstverein in spring 2015, solo presentations of recent years were developement, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, 2012, des bien ich, Sprüth Magers, Cologne, 2008; expedition, westlondonprojects, London, 2006; and 1 + 1 = 3 Elfgen Technik, Bonner Kunstverein, 2005. Moreover, he participated in group exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg and the Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, 2013-14, the Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, 2012, the Städtische Galerie Karlsruhe, 2011, in Paul Thek in the Context of Today's Contemporary Art, ZKM Karlsruhe, 2007-2008, and at the Kunstverein Kassel, 2006.
Text courtesy Sprüth Magers.
