Portraits | Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle 2021
Devoted entirely to the portrait, this exhibition gathers a wide variety of creative expressions offered in this genre. To this day, the portrait has remained one of the most important, ever reinvigorated artistic forms of representation. It is a recurring figure in countless creative concepts. In light of the current lack of face-to-face encounters, it was with great pleasure that we delved into the subject of portraiture.
Portraits | Mar 4 – Jun 26, 2021
Installation views by Wilfried Petzi
The exhibition is sponsored by: NEUSTART KULTUR and Stiftung Kunstfonds
Sophie
Reinhold
Basic portrait of a very young woman, 2017
77 x 60 cm
Oil and marble powder on canvas
Installation
view
Not only the paintings of Sophie Reinhold themselves play with contrasting display and dominance to the reserve and incompleteness on the canvas. These forces are also active within humans and can therefore be understood on both a mental and a physical level. The willpower of the ego and its striving to expand its position while simultaneously desiring to hide, to conceal, and to isolate is a common phenomenon. Reinhold presents us with this game, this grappling, in a wholly idiosyncratic way. And her images bear witness to a deep love of vulnerable creatures – people who at once fight and flee, scream and fall silent, reveal themselves and hide, who love and hate. With reduced means and without putting their full physicality on display, she gives them an ominous platform, full of wit and charm. And sometimes, all that is left of these creatures is an aura, an echo of their energy – as here in Sophie Reinhold’s “Basic portrait of a very young woman” from 2017.
Florian
Süssmayr
Die Frauen vom Finanzamt München IV, Deroystrasse, 2021
100 x 80 cm | 39 1/3 x 31 1/2 in
oil on canvas
Florian
Süssmayr
Die Frauen vom Finanzamt München IV, Deroystrasse, 2021
100 x 80 cm
oil on canvas
Helene
Appel
Brotscheibe, 2020
10.50 x 9 cm | 4 1/4 x 3 1/2 in
Oil on canvas
Janis
Avotins
Peter Schjeldahl, 2021
40 x 30 cm
oil on canvas
Installation
view
'Portraits' - group exhibition - at Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle on the 1st floor
Leiko
Ikemura
C.H.R., 2019
40 x 30 cm
Tempera on untreated cotton
Leiko
Ikemura
C.H.R., 2019
40 x 30 cm
Tempera on untreated cotton
Leiko
Ikemura
Cindy, 2015
70 x 50 cm
Tempera on untreated cotton
Florin
Mitroi
30.VII.1987
55 x 42 cm
Tempera on canvas
Installation view
For our portrait exhibition, using his inimitably strong, abstract-leaning style of painting, Czech painter Jan Merta has created a haunting portrait of the writer and poet Daniil Charms. Merta expertly ties his work in with the Russian avant-garde, as if he himself were a member of the artist collective OBERIU, or Union of Real Art, which Charms co-founded. It shows Charms' characteristic appearance, based on a photograph depicting Merta "inverted", which means "obrácený" in Czech and at the same time means "converted". A play on words that raises the question of the nature of Charms' conversion, who did not agree with the policies of the Soviet government, demanded freedom of the press, free cultural creation and atoned for this with arrest. Merta portrays people who are important to him and his painting, recalls them and initiates red-hot discussions. “I work in the field of literature. I am not a politically minded person, but the question that is close to me is: literature. I declare that in the field of literature I do not agree with the policy of the Soviet government, and as a counterweight to the measures existing on this point I wish freedom of the press, both for my own work and for the literary work of the literary men close to me, who form with me a literary group of their own.”
Jan
Merta
Obrácený Daniil Charms / Daniil Charms – Inverted Portrait, 2012-2020
110 x 90 cm
Oil on canvas
“I work in the field of literature. I am not a politically minded person, but the question that is close to me is: literature. I declare that in the field of literature I do not agree with the policy of the Soviet government, and as a counterweight to the measures existing on this point I wish freedom of the press, both for my own work and for the literary work of the literary men close to me, who form with me a literary group of their own.”
more information
Alex
Katz
Mel, 2005
36.8 x 53.3 cm
Charcoal on paper
Steven
Claydon
Hebdomeros, 2010/2013
76 x 76 cm
Etched and enamelled patinated bronze
unique
"A.O.: R" is the title of the new sculptural portrait by Thomas Zipp and stands for Abstract Object, on whose shoulders the artist places an aggressive rolling "R" like an angry pet, in the spirit of Dadaism: as if the work reflected our current situation.
Thomas
Zipp
A.O.: R, 2020
64 x 54.5 x 17 cm
Acrylic, oil, aluminium, rubber, lacquer on linen, frame
Signed on reverse
Martin
Creed
Work No. 299, 2003
56.7 x 85.3 cm
Photographic print
Ed. 8/10
Installation
view
Left: Thomas Helbig / middle: Ma Ke / right: Stephan Balkenhol
Thomas
Helbig
Grosses Mädchen, 2009
250 x 205 x 6 cm
Lacquer and oil on wood
Stephan
Balkenhol
Alice in Wonderland / Rabbit , 1989
154 x 104 x 64 cm | 60 2/3 x 41 x 25 1/4 in
Wawa wood
Unique
Stephan
Balkenhol
Alice in Wonderland / Alice, 1989
230 x 138 x 84 cm | 90 1/2 x 54 1/3 x 33 in
Wawa wood
Unique
Ma
Ke
Game 2, 2012
109 x 79 cm
oil on cardboard
Goshka
Macuga
International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, Configuration 16, First Man: Yuri Gagarin, 2016
34 x 37 x 205 cm
Bronze heads and poles
Goshka
Macuga
International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, Configuration 19, End of Systems: Ada Lovelace, 2016
142 x 147 x 200 cm
Bronze heads and poles
Installation
view
Group exhibition "Portraits", 2021
Leiko
Ikemura
Sleep, 2020
15 x 27 x 18 cm
Glass
4/4
Leiko
Ikemura
Kitsune, 2020
20 x 32 x 13 cm
Glass
4/5
Installation
view
'Portraits' - group exhibition - at Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle
Stephan
Balkenhol
Lola Montez, 2021
76 x 60 x 3 cm
Wawa Wood
Unique
Stephan
Balkenhol
R.W. Fassbinder, 2021
76 x 60 x 3 cm
Wawa Wood
Unique
Thomas
Struth
The Felsenfeld / Gold Families, Philadelphia, 2007
140.2 x 179 cm
C-print
Edition 5/10
Signed and titled on the reverse side
The family portrait, as treated by Thomas Struth in his impressive series, takes on a special significance in this time of the pandemic. In our portrait group exhibition, which has been extended until the end of June, we are showing “The Felsenfeld / Gold Families, Philadelphia” (2007) by Thomas Struth. The “Family Life” cycle, in which Struth deeply concerns himself with processes of development and perception, represents a significant part of the artist's photographic œuvre.
more information
Installation view at the gallery
Struth has been taking photographs of families in the widest variety of countries and cultural environments continuously since 1985, including Germany, Italy, England, the United States, Peru, Japan and China. His photographs are taken mostly in circles of people to whom he closely relates, either privately or professionally. A whole multitude of negatives is exposed in one sitting and a selection is then made later together with the family. Only a few photographs are finally enlarged. Captured with enormous sensitivity, Thomas Struth's portraits reveal much of the emotional and social structures as well as cultural backgrounds of the families. They tell us about their living circumstances, about the way the individuals relate to and behave towards each other within their family circles and especially in this time of the pandemic, the images call to mind just how important family ties are to us all.
Thomas
Ruff
Porträt (A. Zeitler), 1998
210 x 165 cm
C-print
Edition 1/4
Signed, dated, numbered on the reverse side
Thomas Ruff approached the subject in the 1980s, opting for a neutral representation of a frontal halflenghts free of any semblance of emotion, gesture, or facial expression. He showed the surface—but not the individual features—of the depicted person in large-format works, thus questioning the original intent of portrait photography. In contrast, Thomas Struth portrays individuals, couples, and families with a plate camera and long exposure. His images attest to the empathy with which he deals with his models; they evoke psychological depth and present the subjects in private and intimate surroundings, like 2007’s The Felsenfeld / Gold Families, Philadelphia, shown in this exhibition.
more information
Thomas
Ruff
Porträt (T.Djordjadze), 1999
24 x 18 cm
C-print
Unlimited
Signed, dated on the reverse side
Thomas
Ruff
neg◊india_14, 2014
71 x 61 cm | 28 x 24 in
C-print
Edition 2/8
Signed, dated, numbered on the reverse side
Alex Katz (born 1927 in New York; lives and works in New York) is known the world over for his Pop Art-like portraits, which he has continued to make since the 1950s. Recurring figures in these portraits are family members and friends from his close environment, such as his wife Ada. Katz has also continued to make drawings in conjunction with these paintings, which have served as first approaches to his subjects before they were eventually captured in oil. While the drawings’ swift style bespeaks a rather intuitive perception of the portrayed individuals, the oil paintings captivate us in their intensely colorful two-dimensionality and abstraction on monochrome backgrounds, which allow the portraits to appear like icons.
Leiko
Ikemura
Joseph, 2015
60 x 50 cm
Tempera on untreated cotton
Alex
Katz
Red Hat (Tarajia), 2013
55.88 x 40.64 cm
Charcoal on paper
Installation
view
'Portraits' - group exhibition - at Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle on the 1st floor
Installation
view
'Portraits' - group exhibition - at Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle
Eberhard
Havekost
ohne Titel (K), 2018/2019
60 x 34 cm
Oil on canvas
