GEORG HEROLD – BEVERLY’S COUSINE

At the beginning of the 1980s, Georg Herold, who studied under Sigmar Polke from 1977 until 1983, questioned art and the art business in a radical and sarcastic way together with Martin Kippenberger, Werner Büttner and Albert Oehlen. During the 1980s, the group developed an oeuvre which seems like a dada-inspired encyclopedia of the provisional. Their paintings, sculptures, installations, objects, texts and videos with their character of being created en passant reflect an artistic core belief that confronts the myth of perfection and masterpiece with calculated “unfinishedness.” Georg Herold’s works which are made from everyday objects and materials critically and ironically deal with art historical, social, political, ideological and religious ways of thinking and constantly surprise the viewers by confronting them with their own expectations of art.

Opposite – Beverly, 2011- 2017

Exhibition runs through to April 21st, 2018

Contemporary Fine Arts – CFA
Grolmanstrasse 32/33
Charlottenburg
10623 Berlin
Germany

cfa-berlin.de

ALEX HUBBARD – PRIVATE LIVES

Hubbard’s practice unites both disciplines in a symbiotic way whereby the examination of the performative process and its physicality are equally at the center. Three large-format paintings made of layers of pigmented urethane, resin, and fiberglass are at the core of this exhibition. Underlying stencil drawings are being washed-out by layers of synthetic materials. Its temporality withdraws every deliberation and explores accidental compositions, colors, and depths, typically found in the work of Hubbard. In juxtaposition are four small-scale cabinet pieces, oscillating the instability between painting and sculpture on one hand and abstraction and figuration on the other. Each shadow box reveals behind semi-drawn curtains a painting – both abstract and representational. Framed by shapes and colors of outdated wallpaper they presume a continuation of the domestic space apparent in the artist’s Bar Paintings whilst introducing an unprecedented intimacy inherent in each cabin. The question of the supremacy of painting, of what abstraction is today, and the re-examination of Hubbard’s own practice prevails.

Opposite – Constantly Native, 2018

Exhibition runs through to April 29th, 2018

Galerie Neu
Linienstraße 119 abc
10115 Berlin
Germany

www.galerieneu.net

GERWALD ROCKENSCHAUB – GEOMETRIC PLAYGROUND

For geometric playground (flamboyant edit), Gerwald Rockenschaub designed a new wall installation in the main showroom space. Four wall works complement one another, a counterpoint comment on each other and thus form a rhythmic whole. The wall works consist of painted surfaces and objects made of acrylic glass. Because of the different materiality of the wall and the mirroring acrylic glass, it is difficult to tell from afar whether the work is flat or three-dimensional. In a way it is both: the 1/8 inch thick objects are three-dimensional, but they are silhouetted against the walls not through their plasticity but rather through their surface effect. The acrylic glass diffusely mirrors the spectators’ movements through the space. The work thus questions two basic properties of walls — their planarity and their statics.

Perfectly crafted and flawlessly installed, the wall works render an aura of hyperrealist perfection. The acrylic glass objects are put up with acrylic screws—and thus ironically appear as functional objects, while being so perfectly chosen and installed that functionality itself appears as a gesture. Playing with function and pseudo-function, Rockenschaub blurs the boundaries between art and design. The painted surfaces with their translucent colors both repeat and are attuned to each other, creating a rhythm of minimal forms that leads the eye through the room. Their size gives structure to the space, while their mirroring effects give rise to a dialogue between architecture, artwork and spectator, constantly renewing the relationship of the latter to the former two.

Opposite – Installation view

Exhibition runs through to April 29th, 2018

Galerie Eva Presenhuber
39 Great Jones Street
NY 10012
New York

www.presenhuber.com