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Versione
italiana
24 June – 25 July 2003
Mon-Fri, 11.00–19.00, closed holidays
The Paolo Curti/Annamaria Gambuzzi & Co.
gallery presents, on Tues 24 June, the group show “Painting on the
roof”. The exhibition, curated by Veit Loers, comes directly from
the Abteiberg Museum of Mönchengladbach, of which Loers is the
director, where it was seen from 19 January to 21 April 2003.
It includes works by nine German artists, and the exhibition can be
seen as a Manifesto of the new painting. These artists do not pay
tribute to the large formats and violence of the post-Pop painting
of the 1990s, but neither do they belong to the ranks of the
“politically correct” art imposed by vogue-conscious curators. At
the same time, we cannot associate these paintings, watercolors and
drawings with the historical tradition of neo-expressionism. These
works, perhaps, can be defined as neo-symbolist.
Most of the nine artists come from southern Germany. They come to
grips with the idea of narrative art, though without any debt to
it. They are interested in the concept of the icon, in the true
sense of the term, that of representative painting. The images in
“Painting on the Roof” embody a nomadic character that constitutes
their force with respect to other experimentation with painting of
this generation. The new often appears in the guise of the old. For
this reason, these figurative works possess a symbolic, realistic,
calligraphic lightness. But their foundation is formed by the
pursuit of archetypes and the visionary gaze at the invisible that
always permeated the painting of the 20th century, starting with
Kandinsky.
The title “Painting on the Roof” can be interpreted as a reference
to a condition of suspension between sky and earth, where ideas and
images more easily take form, and then evaporate, even when one has
one’s feet planted firmly on the ground, or in the art system.
All the artists in the exhibition live in Berlin, and this is
important, due to the intellectual atmosphere of openness of the
city. The artists do not constitute a group, though their work
reflects a shared project and intellectual interaction.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by B. Kuhlen
Verlag, with many illustrations and an essay by Veit Loers.
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