Exhibitions
Archive
Viola Bittl, Stef Heidhues, Philip Seibel
Selected by Dr. Hans-Jörg Clement, Curator of the Trustee Programm EHF 2010 of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
September 12 - October 19, 2013
Opening: Thursday, September 12, 2013, 5 - 9 pm
In the current exhibition, the EIGEN + ART Lab presents three positions of younger artists. Taking up the thread of earlier exhibitions, this showing in the EIGEN + ART Lab is the result of collaboration with an external partner. The three artists are Fellows of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and were selected for the exhibition by the Curator of the Trustee Program EHF 2010, Dr. Hans Jörg Clement.
In different media, Viola Bittl, Stef Heidhues, and Philip Seibel are united in their commitment to ambivalence and the eschewal of a solely narrative, facile structure. Between (seeming) improvisation, beauty, and fetishistic perfection, origin is anonymized and strategies are veiled, in order to communicate very directly with the viewer. The appearance of the artistic works, which congenially make the most of materiality and haptic quality, becomes an experience whose (absent) center is the human being.
Viola Bittl (born in 1980) shows figure/ground paintings that stand alone; no picture resembles another. They can be discreetly and tersely described as the results of a long, intense process that, in images and superimpositions, hides the time that flows into the work.
Stef Heidhues (born in 1975) shows expansive installations and sculptures that display motifs like fences and obstructions and thereby take as their theme not only claims to territory and political power, but also internal delimitations and psychological barriers. The material is always thoughtfully chosen and directs the legibility of her work, providing contradiction and ambivalence.
Philip Seibel (born in 1980) plays with the viewer’s emotion and allows him to “not categorize” what he sees. In his works, Seibel poses riddles that raise questions of genuineness and authenticity. In the EIGEN + ART Lab, he lets the visitor view large-format panels – on the one hand, wood veneers on sheets of aluminum, and, on the other, wood-like structures applied directly to aluminum; they reflect the theme of painting in a completely new way.