FRANZ STEIN – SUNLIT LOVE
2025-08-04A carpet, the work of a painter?! In recent years, Franz Stein’s canvases have become light, airy—even playful: There are no preliminary sketches or templates. On a layered white base, beneath which thinned layers of acrylic paint shimmer through, the artist swiftly applies color in lines or areas—gestures of powerful energy and intense dynamics. Thus, what initially appears flat becomes, upon longer viewing, a spatial image with foreground, middle, and background. These are worlds cast onto canvas—of thoughts, dreams, and desires: images of spaces and realities, painted utopias! Pure joy in painting, in the act of painting. The indulgent handling of the canvas is inherent in every one of Franz Stein’s works. And now this: the leap from the wall to the floor, from the two-dimensionality of the surface to the three-dimensionality of space, from the formal to the fluffy! Franz Stein designed the 55-square-meter carpet at a 1:20 scale as a draft sketch composed of 21 individual parts. These carpet segments are arranged in such a way that each can function autonomously as a portrait-format rug, yet together they form a landscape-format overall image.
Opposite – Installation view
Exhibition runs through to August 31st, 2025
KÖNIG GALERIE
Monbijoustrasse 11
10117 Berlin
Germany