STATE OF THE ART 2020
5 September until 31 October 2020
From 1 November onward, STATE OF THE ART 2020 is only accessible in its text version. If you are interested in the digital tour through the exhibition space, please do not hesitate to contact us via email kontakt (at) galeriepostel.de
For full enjoyment of the text version of STATE OF THE ART, please click on the images – further information and images are hidden behind many of them.
Links in the text connect to former exhibitions of the artist at galerie postel
works are listed in alphabetical order by artist
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The most recent work by Amer Al Akel, “Melting their Power”, transfers the artist’s conceptual approach into the printing technique and still bears the same handwriting as did his contributions to the IN BETWEEN exhibition where an oversized game of chess, neon letters and a relief sculpted from Aleppo Soap made their point in a multitude of media that themselves were carriers of meaning.
Melting – that is the process the handcuffs made from frozen water undergo. The ephemeral process is documented in a video file and conserved in print. What meaning do the handcuffs imply? The artist deliberately leaves the question to the viewer. One thing, nevertheless, can be said concerning the lenticular technique: Whether the handcuffs are still there or not is a matter of perspective…
She is kneeling close to the edge, apparently naked but nevertheless barely recognizable by contour or features. Wet from something running down her body in shining neon orange.
Why? What are the circumstances? Why is she kneeling? Is she hurt? What is running down her body? And why has she not raised her arms to protect herself when she was obviously hit by something? She keeps her arms behind her back, helplessly giving in, presenting herself to the opponent, incapable of fleeing or to ward off the violent act. Is she free in her actions? Or forced to do so? Ari Goldmann keeps the viewer in the dark.
Most of Goldmann’s other paintings are based on images derived from the media, from books and newspapers. Through these he reflects upon the use of archetypal iconographic forms of our collective memory. But this time a photo the artist himself took, served as basis to the painting.
It was taken about a year ago, when the sculpture “big kneeling woman” by Georg Seitz was vandalised in an attack using paint. The sculpture is kneeling at the end of a stone bench at the Alster walk close by the Alster meadows, a popular recreation area in Hamburg. She surmounts the seated flaneurs. The attack nevertheless contradicts any impression of free will or relaxation. The passive gesture might have been interpreted differently in the sixties when the sculpture was made, but where does one kneel as obedient as this while being abused?
Weep – the title transmits the amount of sadness the artist sees in this situation. As in his other works Ari Goldmann deletes any context relating to time and place in the process of abstraction, even the graffiti with its political implications that was applied to the bench during the attack. Reduced to its outlines the gesture of the figure becomes prominent as universal signifier.
This is not the single sculpture violated on a specific place in Hamburg, it is the universality of violence and passivity, of vulnerability and sadness in face of the violence that in the brightness of the neon colour sticks out from the black and white of the painting’s background.
Simon Halfmeyer
In his recent works Simon Halfmeyer continues both lines of work that he introduced to the public both in the „Wandzeichnungen“ exhibition (2014) and the „Expetopia“ exhibition (2016): Wilderness in urban space investigated through his figurative drawings and abstraction filling the drawings from edge to edge achieving the impression of an endless “all-over”.
Drawing is the medium of choice to Simon Halfmeyer and he takes it to its limits in different materials and media. The abstract graphite drawings on laminate paper are executed in a format of 181 x 121 cm, rather expected from a painting and by sheer size meeting the observer in a physical eye to eye situation.
His more figurative works are a journey into the wilderness of the urban space. They are derived from an archive of hundreds of drawings and photos reappearing in other works: Palm trees and exotic plants from foyers, greenhouses, airports or shopping malls stand for the artificial construct of wilderness as imagined by civilization. This contrast is made visible through urban elements like sky scrapers or traffic lights.
These drawings are executed either like fresco painting, huge in size and directly on the wall, they can take the form of colour reliefs and are taken into the third dimension as sculptures. One work leads to another, elements are re-used, transformed and later find their way back into the archive their first version derived from. An organic growth through sampling process that is reminiscent of the growth of the jungle these drawings constitute.
The abstract series of „Stars“ more than any other of his reintroduces the „hand of the artist“ into the work. He draws the lines using a ruler in opposition to the organic forms of his plant drawings and forms the rhythm of the drawing by moving the lines bit by bit. A very physical process considering the drawing’s size.
Whoever has missed out on Fadi al-Hamwis performance „Sugar Forever“ at CAA gallery, Berlin, in June 2019 is now given the chance for a digital re-evaluation with the photo documentation the artist contributed to STATE OF THE ART.
In about 10 days the artist transformed hundreds of kilos of loose sugar into cubes formed after the traditional building bricks as they are common in Syria. And the sheer dimension of the work is reflective of the situation: To al-Hamwi sugar in this context stands for two closely related aspects forming today’s society, colonialism with its consequences, amongst which migration, be it through people seeking refuge from war or hunger today.
What these dis- and replacements have in common is the need to find a new role and place in the country of arrival. To be part of the bricks that form society, symbolised by the metaphor of building and house. The process is not an easy one. Not all grains of sugar stay in place after the pressing process and there too are destructive forces, burning and melting the sugar bricks. But the majority of the bricks lines up in neat order, all formed by the artists hand as the directing, forming, structuring force.
With this performance Fadi al-Hamwi follows the path that he set in the IN BETWEEN exhibition at galerie postel in 2018/19, where he displayed a book pressed from sugar that read „Poisoned History“ on the title. MIgration, flight, the consequences of integrating in a new society also were reflected in the concrete rug „Irrational Loop of Dust“, two strings of al-Hamwis work, that come together in the latest performance „Sugar Forever“ on display at STATE OF THE ART today.
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Please contact us for further information:
kontakt (at) galeriepostel.de
Tel.: +49-40-22 85 39 24 – 0