Curated by João Ribas with Filipa Loureiro

The practice of Cologne-born artist Michael Krebber is as influential as it is (in)famous for laying bare the conditions and conventions of painting (and painter) by means of tentative gestural markings, evacuated canvases, diffident readymades, and lapidary exhibition displays. Krebber’s abstractions always appear to operate at the brink of disappearance as they continuously substitute ciphers of doubt, delay, withdrawal, and hesitation for the medium’s ancestral values of expression, plenitude, and presentness. While painting will take center stage this fall at Serralves for Krebber’s first exhibition in Portugal, also on display will be a number of drawings and sculptures, among them a selection of his segmented windsurfing boards. This retrospective of approximately eighty works dating back to the 1980s will present a rare opportunity to encounter both the trajectory and the intricacies of an oeuvre that proves painting’s resilience precisely by putting under duress its procedures and promises. Travels to Kunsthalle Bern, Feb.–Apr. 2017.

— André Rottmann