Exemplificational, constructive, figurative:

Art in Mannheim

So far the public houses, even in summer holidays with an extensive programme. It concerns especially artists with a relationship to the region. For many years and in always new, more intensive form the galleries of the Mannheimer of Gallery Federation (Mannheimer Galerienverband) maintain the most diverse aspects of the concrete-constructional, informal and figurative art in the region.

Molnars minimalistic color and form variations are shown in the William Hack Museum and in the topic tables and single exhibitions of the März-Galerie in Ladenburg. Their pictures exemplify by continuous variations and differentiation the innumerable shadings of a basic colour, in particular the color red.

Into the summer break of the gallery led single exhibitions of Gerhard Frömel and Gert Riel, whose works can show, how the März Gallery in Ladenburg points out specific tendencies within the constructive and concrete art.

Frömels skulptural laminated and painted pictures let strong colors flash behind black and white form surfaces, reminding the hard edge painting of the American abstractionsts, however many more decoratively and by the form of the surfaces transfiguring aluminium to a flexibility like paper. The internal tension of the material is the topic of the steel sculptures of Gert Riel. The artist creates objects, that demonstrate peace in their size and weight and lead the physical impulse beyond the scientific into the range of aesthetic experience.

After the summer break the März Gallery in Ladenburg opens in the Preysing Palais, a beautiful, modernized factory building on far more than 200 square meter surface, the exhibition “Kreise ziehen” of objects and installations created by Jürgen Paas. It is shown from the 16th september to 17th october. The Krefelder painter proceeds from a monochrome surface and develops this by progressive rates, arrangements and installations, which refer archaeological areas beyond the painting to the film and in the broad sense archeological systems. In the following exhibitions again new tendencies shall be pointed out, as pure painting and color, or topics as “white”, “yellow” and “blue”, starring the art work of Dieter Balser and Nikolas Bodde. The März Gallery of Blanka Heinecke in Mannheim starts with an individual programme at the end of 2007 and opens at the 14th september with new pictures of Jean Francois Dubreuil.

The März Gallery in Ladenburg is member of the federation of the Mannheimer Galleries, which will invite on 15th september in the “Short Night of the Galleries” with extended opening times and the current exhibitions after the summer break.

The gallery Sebastian Fath Contemporary consolidates the region-typical program of concrete art or minimal art with reduced positions of contemporary art from two generations. In many single exhibitions the spacious gallery shows seven established positions in the Mannheimer Elizabethstraße such as Joachim Bandau, Agostino Bonalumi, Madeleine Dietz et al., as well as art of their subsequent generation, sometimes even personal pupils such as Kai Richter (pupil of Joachim Bandau), Jan Schmidt or Nir Alon.

Joachim Bandaus yellow water colors were shown in an exhibition of the gallery by 21 July until summer break. As in the black water colors the yellow ones can be understood as designs, which result from the artist's self-understanding as sculptor. With an especially broad japanese brush Bandau strikes with meditative slow lines over the rough surface of the partially handdrawn heavy hand made paper. Up to 20 ink layers are set one above the other. Such the water colors vary between bright yellow, grey-yellow up to dark and yellow shining through only in few places. Bandau's pupil Kai Richter however sets its work even more related to sculpture as installation into the area. Boards and surface forms, steles and sticks, which fill out the walls up to the room's full height. The first opening after the summer break at the 14th september 2007 shows such a new, semisemantical style in concrete art, that could have already been seen in the exhibition of Nir Alon before. The title of Richter's presentation, “Wegen Umbau geschlossen” (in engl. "Closed owing to conversion"), however not applies to the exhibition itself or concrete art at the Sebastian Fath Gallery, as also the subsequent exhibitions of Peter Lüttrich, Beat Zoderer and Joachim Gromek will show.

Color painting and especially the German Informell in a broad folder of the art since 1945 are positions the gallery Peter Zimmermann emphasises on. Artists such as Gierke, Roeth and Jochim, represented by the gallery, show in the Leibnizstrasse 20 the formal complexity of color; the exemplification of typical characteristics of the sculpture in the works from Ewert Hilgemann, which is represented by Zimmermann and presents his art works in the William Hack Museum's exhibition "Exemplifikation wird Kunst" until 18th August.

New works of Roeth lead the gallery Zimmermann into the summer break and are up to autumn to be seen there after telephone arrangement. Some of the pictures, e.g. “Mannheimer assembly” are particularly developed for gallery. The work refers with red tones on slates to the red beeches in the environment. Characteristically for most of the issued work is an iridescent effect of the different colors on each other. An apparently simple grid network from colored lines approaches out into other colors to build a kind of virtual surface. A yellow grid network on green gets a particularly alive effect by orange overlays.

The regular opening times of the exhibition are starting from 28th september with Carles Valverde in the new season. For the Short Night of the Galleries at 15th september the finissage of the Winston Roeth exhibition takes place in the gallery Peter Zimmermann. To 9th september 07 Robert Schad, who is represented by the gallery Peter Zimmermann, can be seen in the exhibition “Mittendrin” to the sculpture year 2007 in Schorndorf

A completely different program represents the gallery Kasten. Since establishment in 1990 Dr. Kasten represents figurative art in the three disciplines painting, sculpture, photography and new media. Important representatives such as Stefan Szczesny and Hubertus van der Goltz are represented by Kasten since 1990. H. v. d. Goltz is with its balancing humans in abstract linkages world-wide successful also in the classical public art, Szczesny sets with its ornamental and spatially laminated figurations on high-contrast colors aesthetic standards.

In photography equip well known artists such as Horst Hamann the portfolio. Hamann's photographs - e.g. in its series of New York's scyscrapers - are done with a panorama camera, which he places perpendicularly, in order to create an austere formal line of architecture, independently of the technical borders of photography.

He takes motives from the new media, like click icons or mouse pointers, and within the exhibition he pulls reproducible pictorial material, that developes outside the picture into a larger work or a work for its own.

The autumn program starting from 14th September 2007 will continue the argument with Thomas Kutschker and film as the medium. The films “Die dunklen Lichter” and “Das moderne Leben” produce most different motives in an originally documentary way, but artificial and exaggerated aspects clarify how these motives spread their narrative potential behind the surface of the first object impression.

On the "Mannheimer Galerientage" the gallery Bernhard Knaus Fine Art will be seen again in Mannheim, while this gallery with an emphasis on photography and art, that argues experimentally with the photographic medium and production process, will move to Frankfurt / Main in autumn 2007, where a very large accomodation close to the main station is offered. For the season start of the Frankfurt galleries Bernhard Knaus opens from 31st August the group exhibition STATEMENT, until 2nd September 2007. Marco Breuer, Margret Eicher, Simon Halfmeyer, Harald Kröner or Cecilia Westerberg et al. will participate with new art work, thus the so far represented artists and some new protagonists.

Apart from narrative and illustrating strategies in the medium, Knaus's artists such as Marco Breuer represent positions exceeding photography formally. He works without camera, just with the “materials” of the medium to let particularly develop the photo paper, which he scrapes in order to get with light and shades quasi graphical structures on the sheet. In the exhibition “Sommer, Sonne, Mond und Sterne” (until 28th July) there were rather poetic or again-material photographies of Sabine Dehnel, Sabine Finkenauer, Christiane Löhr, to see Alicia Martin and Cecilia Westerberg et al. approaching by their large formats and a nearly brushstroken style classical styles of painting.

With the removal to Frankfurt the gallery Bernhard Knaus Fine Art's rooms becomes the "projektraum4" (project area 4). The name stands for the four members of the Mannheimer Gallery Association, who will become active in the projektraum4: Kasten, Fath, Hollinger and Zimmermann. For every exhibition two new artists of these galleries will be issued.

Further information:

Interview with Dr. Friedrich W. Kasten, chairman of the Mannheimer Gallery Federation.(English version forthcoming)

Important dates and addresses:

Exhibition “Exemplifikation wird Kunst”

15.06. to 19.08.2007

Wilhelm Hack Museum

Ludwigshafen am Rhein

Berliner Straße 23

67059 Ludwigshafen am Rhein

Telephone: +49 (0) 621/504 30 45

Fax: +49 (0) 621/504 37 80

E-Mail: hackmuseum@ludwigshafen.de

URL: http://www.wilhelm-hack-museum.de

Torsten Ruehle

Gallery Kasten

15.07. - 25.08.2007

Dr. Friedrich W. Kasten

Werderstr. 18

68165 Mannhein

Tel. 0621 40 70 38

GalerieKasten@aol.com

www.galerie-kasten.de

31.08. - 02.09.2007

STATEMENT

Gallery Bernhard Knaus Fine kind

Group exhibition

Frankfurt/Main.

10. September

projektraum4

Exhibition opening 18-21 o'clock

Augartenstr. 68

68165 Mannheim

14. 09.- 20.10.07

Jean Francois Dubreuil

März-Galerien Blanka Heinecke

Beethovenstr. 18

Mannheim

bheinecke@maerz-galerien.de

www.maerz-galerien.de

14.09. Thomas Kutschker “Scapes”

Opening 19 o'clock with the film “The dark lights”

14.09. - 13.10.2007

Galerie Kasten

Werderstr. 18

68165 Mannheim

Tel. 0621 40 70 38

GalerieKasten@aol.com

www.galerie-kasten.de

“Closed owing to conversion”

Kai Richter

14.09. - 13.10.2007

Gallery Sebastian Fath Contemporary

Elisabethstr. 7

D-68165 Mannheim

Tel. 0621 - 76 444 00

Fax 0621 - 76 444 01

sebastianfath@fath-contemporary.de

Di. - Fr. 14-19 o'clock + SA. 10-16 o'clock

15.09. 2007

Short night of the galleries.

Gallery round course at 18.00 - 23.00 o'clock

15.09.2007

Film of Thomas Kutschker “The modern life”

20.00 o'clock

Gallery Kasten

Werderstr. 18

68165 Mannheim

15.09.2007

Finissage Winston Roeth

Gallery Peter Zimmermann

Leibnizstrasse 20

68165 Mannheim

Tel. 0621-419031

Fax 0621-419030

Exhibition “JÜRGEN PAAS. Kreise ziehen. Objekte und Installationen".

16.09. to 17.10.2007

März-Galerie in Ladenburg

Rheingaustr. 34

Ladenburg

lhollinger@maerz-galerien.de

www.maerz-galerien.de

Carles Valverde

28.09. - 10.11.2007

Gallery Peter Zimmermann

Leibnizstrasse 20

68165 Mannheim

Tel. 0621-419031

Fax 0621-419030

Report and photo: Dr. Ulrike Ritter

Read this article and an interview with Dr. Friedrich W. Kasten about the Gallery Association of Mannheim in german on www.kunst-spektrum.de

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