WALD | Landscapes of Memory
 
are the deep memories we carry within us. They are the mythological images of our childhood, the ones from fairy tales, the Romantic paintings. They are the collective deep memories of the historic forest, remembered and stored in the cells and genes for centuries. Images we where born with, which accompany us through life until we die.
 
“Landscapes are culture before they are nature, constructs of the imagination that are projected onto woods and water and rock.” Landscapes do not exist per se. They are created by the artist; only through his perception and perspective in combination of multitudes of elements like the weather, light, the trees, shrubs, grass, moss an image is created.
 
Two levels are being brought into accord in the pictures – the experience of nature and deep, remembered landscapes.
 
This project was determined by the questions how silence can be depicted in an image and how to approach the elusive, ephemeral realm. The woods and the twilight are the medium for this silence, for an open image that leaves space for the own associations and phantasies.
 
The photographs from the series WALD decelerate the beholder and give him peace. They create a connection with the inner space of silence. A silence that is always there, that everyone carries within himself; but which is usually cluttered with the constantly challenging demands and impressions of everyday life.
 
Michael Lange Simon Schama

Robert Zandvliet
SEVEN STONES
 
Bernhard Knaus Fine Art:
May 15th until July 27th 2013
 
Robert Zandvliet (born 1970, living in Rotterdam)
 
The artists latest works focus on stones. Inspired by “Pierres”, a book written by the French surrealist Roger Caillois which speaks of the internal memory inherent to crystals and minerals enabled Zandvliet to discover the poetic potential that lingers in the structures, as well as, the drawings of such stones. Caillois is particularly drawn to the more corrupted specimens: septarian and other lesser minerals.
 
He rejects purity, that which determines the stone‘s worth, as it leaves no trace, tells no tale. In the “drawn” stones however, nature’s signature leaves its mark which Callois recognizes with an almost pantheist fascination as art in itself. Whether a stone or a sculptured object stems from aesthetic edifications is not a concern of Callois'." These traces, on the other hand, are what interest Zandvliet most.
 
Address:
Niddastrasse 84
60329 Frankfurt am Main
 
Opening hours:
Mon- Fri: 13:00 - 18:00
Sat: 11:00- 15:00
 
Telephone: 069 / 244 507 68
Email: knaus@bernhardknaus-art.de
 
Webpage: www.bernhardknaus-art.de/Robert_Zandvliet_E.html‎
 
Article about the exhibition:
blogs.artinfo.com/berlinartbrief/2013/05/16/painter-robert-zandvliet-on-dropping-art-history-for-the-simplicity-of-stones/

MERRY COMPANY
BUCK ELLISON
HENRIK OLAI KAARSTEIN
 
CURATED BY DIETMAR MEZLER
 
Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf is pleased to present works by Buck Ellison and Henrik Olai Kaarstein, both students at the Städelschule. The exhibition title Merry Company refers to 17th century Dutch genre paintings, which depicted feasts and drinking bouts in bourgeois homes. On one hand, these paintings depict the wealth and social status of their patrons; on the other hand, they criticize the dissolute lifestyle of this class through the use of symbols and metaphors.
 
In photographs of Buck Ellison you will often find motifs that reflect on the contradictions and ambivalences of bourgeois identity. Ellison’s images confront the viewer with the aesthetics of advertising photographs, but also disrupt this in a subtle way. For example, in Ethical Culture, 2013 the artist photographed in Berlin's luxurious department store KaDeWe, where exotic fish species are displayed as luxury goods. Even though the work reminds the viewer of Golden Age Dutch still lives, it simultaneously comments on today’s globalized market economy, where food and products from almost anywhere are available for a solvent group of buyers at any time. Similarly ambiguous is the work Untitled (Hands), 2012 – the reason for the applause remains a mystery; the clapping hand seems to become a mere self-pleasing institutional gesture.
 
Henrik Olai Kaarstein is a collector; he gathers objects and items which can be found in any ordinary home - including shower curtains, plastic flowers, furniture, towels or napkins. In itself, they are neither valuable nor sentimentally-charged objects, and yet the human presence is always felt. In the works of Kaarstein, which shift between sculpture, painting and collage, these items undergo a metamorphosis. Thus, in the work Happy Birthday Morning, Mr. President, 2012, the found shower curtain, on the one hand, becomes a work of art due to its formal and material qualities; on the other hand, its original function as a commodity resonates within the associative aura, which is further enhanced by the title.
 
Buck Ellison (1987, San Francisco) studied Fine Arts at Columbia University in New York and is currently a student at the Städelschule in the class of Willem de Rooij. Henrik Olai Kaarstein ( 1989, Oslo) was a student at Norland College of Art and Film and also studies at the Städelschule in Willem de Rooij’s class.

PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA
20 JUNE – 8 SEPTEMBER 2013
 
For the very first time in Europe, the Schirn will host a comprehensive retrospective on the oeuvre of US photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Born in 1951, diCorcia is one of the most important and influential photographers of today. His images oscillate between everyday elements and arrangements that are staged down to the smallest details. In his oeuvre, images that are seemingly close to reality taken with an ostensibly documentary eye are undermined by highly elaborate direction of the images. One of the key topics that diCorcia addresses is the issue of whether reality can be represented and this is one of the continuous threads linking his photographs, most of which he creates as series. For example, for Hustlers (1990–1992), he took photographs of male prostitutes in minutely staged settings, while for what is presumably his most famous series, Heads (2000–2001), he captured a second of the everyday life of passersby on the street in New York, who were oblivious to him. Alongside the series Streetwork (1993–1999), Lucky 13 (2004) and A Storybook Life (1975–1999), the exhibition at the Schirn, organized in close collaboration with diCorcia, will also feature works from his new and ongoing East of Eden project.
 
Curator: Katharina Dohm (Schirn Kunsthalle)

GLAM!
THE PERFORMANCE OF STYLE
14 JUNE – 22 SEPTEMBER 2013
 
Glam is an apt description for the extravagant style that musicians such as David Bowie and Marc Bolan made popular in Great Britain in the early 1970s and which by brashly linking high culture and subculture and questioning socially received concepts such as identity and gender swiftly became an international phenomenon. Its origins can be traced back to the British art college scene, where painter and graphic artist Richard Hamilton proposed that all art genres were equal in status – and strongly influenced Bryan Ferry. The latter was to emerge as the mastermind of the band Roxy Music and become the very epitome of the absolute art product of Glam, combining the avant-garde, Pop Art, and Camp to form an ultra-artificial aesthetic. The exhibition – organized by Tate Liverpool in association with Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, and Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz – for the first time outlines the numerous different ways that the Glam era influenced film, photography, fashion, graphic design, performance and installation art, painting and sculpture. Alongside about 150 works by the likes of Guy Bourdin, Gilbert & George, Peter Hujar, Derek Jarman, Ray Johnson, Allen Jones, Jürgen Klauke, Ed Paschke, Sigmar Polke, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol, the show is rounded out by photographs by Mick Rock as well as extensive documentary material.
 
Curator: Darren Pih (Tate Liverpool)
Project director at the Schirn Kunsthalle: Matthias Ulrich