02.03 — 20.04.2007Hunky DoryGroup ShowGeorg Baselitz
Cecily Brown
Peter Doig
Jonathan Meese
Chris Ofili
Tal R
Daniel Richter
Norbert Schwontkowski
Dash Snow
Christopher Wool
Featuring works by 10 internationally renowned artists, Hunki Dory offers a captivating and profound exploration of the most influential trends in the realm in the world of contemporary art.
Georg Baselitz
Georg Baselitz is the celebrated German artist who made has made a significant impact as a painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. In the 1960s, he garnered widespread acclaim for his expressive and figurative paintings.
In 1969, he embarked on a distinctive artistic journey, depicting his subjects as inverted figures. This unconventional approach aimed to transcend the representational and content-driven nature of his earlier works, placing a deliberate emphasis on the inherent artificiality of the act of painting itself. Drawing inspiration from diverse sources, such as Soviet illustrative art, the Mannerist era, and African sculpture, Baselitz merged these influences to forge his own artistic language, firmly establishing his position within the art world.
Peter Doig
One of the most prominent British artists of our time, Peter Doig possesses a diverse range of techniques that bring to life themes of magical realism, infusing his artworks with an ethereal and enchanting quality.
His large-scale paintings often feature people situated in indistinct landscapes, drawing upon personal pictorial materials or found objects. Doig seeks out fragments of contemporary existence, seamlessly incorporating them into his artistic compositions. He gathers inspiration from various sources, including photographs, newspaper clippings, and drawings from pop culture like album covers and film posters, which serve as initial references for his captivating paintings
In upholding a tradition established by masters like Gauguin, Bonnard, and Matisse, Peter Doig draws from both contemporary and historical influences. Dream-like visuals permeate his body of work, capturing timeless moments of tranquil serenity. Through his chosen subject matter and unique painting techniques, Doig evokes a sense of familiarity while presenting viewers with fresh and captivating visual perspectives.
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is an acclaimed artist renowned for his intricate and compelling paintings and works on paper, which combine elements of abstraction and figuration. His artistic style is distinctive, characterized by complex and playful multi-layered paintings decorated with characteristic blend of resin, glitter, collage and elephant dung.
Inspired by the lush landscapes and rich traditions of Trinidad, where he has lived since 2005, Ofili’s artwork emanates a vivid and symbolic quality, often veiled in an air of mystery. Through a wide range of aesthetic and cultural influences, such as Zimbabwean cave painting and modernist art, Ofili’s work delves into an exploration of identity and representation.
In 1998 he was awarded the prestigious Turner Prize. In 2003 he was chosen to represent the UK at the 50th Venice Biennale, continuing his artistic career with exhibitions at numerous international art institutions.
Daniel Richter
The German artist Daniel Richter rose to prominence in the 1990s, capturing attention with his abstract paintings distinguished by vibrant and intense colors that introduced elements of graffiti and intricate ornamentation. By the early 2000s Richter’s artistic direction had shifted towards the figurative.
With finesse, Richter merges influences from art history, media, and pop culture, constructing his own unique and surreal realms. Often incorporating reproductions from newspapers or historical books, Richter employs bold and rich colors to evoke a heightened sense of awareness and artificiality.
His recent works strike a delicate balance between figurativeness and abstraction, characterized by a chaotic interweaving of fragmented bodies against a simplified chromatic background. Drawing inspiration from Symbolists such as James Ensor and Edvard Munch, Richter continues to innovate and challenge artistic traditions, offering viewers an immersive visual experience.
Jonathan Meese
A German artist Jonathan Meese is widely recognized for his diverse array of artistic expressions spanning painting, sculpture, performance art, and installations, that reflect his pursuit for controversial and vivid social commentary.
Following the German traditions of Dada and Fluxus as well as the German Neo-expressionism of the 1980s, Meese delves into themes of power, desire, and identity, showcasing a stylistic boldness and flamboyance. His artistic technique deliberately appears garish and employs a seemingly careless approach that disguises a deliberate spirit of an enfant terrible. With a disregard for preconceived notions of painting, he fearlessly employs tubes of acrylics, crayons, graphite, ink, and watercolor on his canvas. Through this unconventional approach, he creates a visual language that challenges conventional artistic norms.
At the core of Meese’s artistic vision lies a personal mythology, a fusion of historical, legendary, and science fiction references. Within this mythological realm, he summons forth figures and heroes, weaving a narrative tapestry that blurs the boundaries between reality and imagination.
Tal R
Tal R is a contemporary Danish painter and sculptor renowned for his vibrant use of color and playful imagery. His artistic style is drawn from various sources, including Outsider and children’s art, as well as historical movements like Expressionism, Symbolism, and Fauvism. The artist himself describes the diverse range of his influences and source material as “kolbojnik,” a Hebrew term meaning leftovers.
Rather than adhering to a singular aesthetic style, Tal R embraces an eclectic approach to form and material. He employs an extensive repertoire of techniques, capturing expressive and geometric abstractions on joined canvases. He masterfully integrates avant-garde stylized primitivism with his own distinctive techniques.
Amidst the variety of approaches present in his body of work, Tal R consistently establishes visual boundaries, delving into carefully chosen compositions and color palettes. His imaginative depictions of everyday life within his neo-expressionist experiments inherently connect his art to the works of such artists like Edvard Munch, Asger Jorn and Jean Dubuffet.
Norbert Schwonkowski
The work of German artist Norbert Schwontkowski , emanates an enchanting allure that adeptly blends simplicity with profound depth. His body of work exudes a distinctive combination of playfulness and melancholy, embodying both a sense of naivety and sophistication. Schwontkowski’s artistic approach defies easy categorization, seamlessly interweaving elements of abstraction, representation, and cartoon aesthetics.
With a minimalist style, he expertly crafts figurative art on sparse canvases, employing a minimal number of brush strokes to convey narratives while delicately blending gentle hues. An intriguing aspect of his process involves grinding his own pigments, directly mixing them on the canvas akin to working with pastels. By adding metal oxides to the pigments, a shimmering effect emerges on the surface, enabling gradual transformation over time.
Schwontkowski’s artistic dedication encompasses profound explorations of human existence as well as the whimsical absurdities of everyday life. He adeptly navigates the realm of allusions and the surreal, striking a delicate balance between elegance and restraint. Through his poetic creations, viewers are invited to delve into the depths of their own interpretations, as if the artworks themselves beckon us to embark on a journey of introspection.
Cecily Brown
Cecily Brown is one of the most celebrated woman artists working in painting today. Her expansive, emotional canvases incorporate elements of compositional structure, historical motifs and a virtuos abstraction inspired by masters of painting of various genres. With a dynamic and multifaceted style, Brown’s artwork bears the distinctive influences of renowned artists like Willem de Kooning, Francis Bacon, and Joan Mitchell.
Recognized for her large-scale canvases, Cecily Brown employs a wide-ranging palette that includes bright hues as well as deep blacks. This rich variety of colours serves to entangle single interpretations as her compositions unravel into perpetually dynamic, complex and elusive manifestations of artistic expression.
Christopher Wool
Over the course of his thirty-year career, Christopher Wool has explored the potential of the painting in the days, when the medium’s capacity seems to have been exhausted. Expanding his artistic practice to encompass photographs, prints, artist’s books, and sculpture, he contemplates images as inherently volatile entities, susceptible to a myriad of disruptive processes.
One of Wool’s revolutionary series involved employing rollers and stamps to transfer intricate decorative patterns in bold black enamel onto a white surface. Through his “word paintings,” he delved into the intersection of intersection of language and imagery, presenting viewers with enigmatic provoking imperatives. In both instances, Wool deliberately introduced unexpected breakdowns within his formal systems—such as slips, glitches, fractured text, and erratic spacing— in order to evoke a wide range of emotional states, spanning from pathos to aggression.
By employing this intricate and multi-faceted technique, Wool invites viewers to engage with the physical qualities of paint and reproduction, cultivating an acute awareness of painting procedures and the fundamental elements of the medium: form, line, and color.
Dash Snow
Dash Snow has gained recognition for his provocative photographs and collages that vividly capture the untamed, rebellious and subversive underground lifestyle of New York City’s youth.
Initially drawn to graffiti during his teenage years, Snow’s passion gradually transitioned to photography, resulting in his iconic Polaroid works and captivating collages. In the late 1990s, he fearlessly immersed himself in the vibrant New York art scene, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with notable artists like Dan Colin, Ryan McGinley, and Terence Koch As a member of the renowned graffiti crew IRAK, Dash became an integral figure within the Downtown scene, achieving legendary status through his daring escapades and a captivating cast of characters. His images of hedonistic fun were recently featured at the 2006 Whitney Biennial.