“Zunge an Zündschnur“

Originally, this exhibition in Galerie Krinzinger’s project space was to be called “Der Sheriff will dass was passiert” (The Sheriff Makes Everything Happen). The “sheriff” was Albert Oehlen, who curated the exhibition and taught all four of these young Düsseldorf painters in art school. But now the reference to the curator has disappeared from the title, and a cryptic and associative play on words has been chosen instead: “Zunge an Zündschnur” (Tongue on Fuse). In fact, the four dynamic young artists make plenty happen all by themselves, by walking a sort of representational tightrope. Their paintings seem to tell stories, but obliquely, through abstract forms and wonderful plays of color. Elaborate agglomerations of geometric shapes recall alchemical laboratories (Andreas Plum); mysterious animals are superimposed on everyday objects like woodpiles (Helga Schmidhuber); and translucent crystalline structures mingle with dots reminiscent of meteor showers (Ann-Kristin Hamm). Finally, the large pencil drawings of apes pulling faces (Cornelius Quabeck,), take us to yet another conceptual level: Just who is observing whom here?

Translated from German by Emily Speers Mears.