Past Exhibitions

Uwe Wittwer

Andere Orte — Wäldchen


April 16 - June 18, 2011

Press Release

Two cen­tral themes in Swiss artist Uwe Wittwer’s exten­sive oeuvre are the “truth of the image” and “image rec­ol­lec­tion”. In an age dom­inated by (dig­ital) media, where the line between real and fake—or ‘edited’—is increas­ingly blurred, the ques­tion of the rela­tion­ship between image, effect and real­ity becomes ever more important. And indeed, the point of depar­ture of Wittwer’s works are dig­ital images found on the inter­net, whose authors always remain anony­mous. With the help of image pro­cess­ing soft­ware he manip­u­lates his source mate­r­ial until such a point where the images become his own and he can transfer them onto canvas or paper. Allu­sions and omis­sions, fuzzi­ness and inver­sions into the neg­a­tive produce works that play with our view­ing habits and image rec­ol­lec­tion in highly sug­ges­tive ways. It is part of the dialectic of Wittwer’s works that their appar­ent sensu­al­ity and beauty are only surface-phe­nom­ena—beneath it, we often encounter men­ace and terror.

After “Verwehung” (Drift), the almost epic pre­senta­tion of works on paper, Uwe Wittwer’s sec­ond solo exhi­bi­tion in this space, with its mys­te­r­i­ous title “Andere Orte—Wäldchen” (Other Places—Grove) con­sists of paint­ings only. In addi­tion to this formal differ­ence, the artist has also shifted his thematic focus. For years he has focused on the simulta­ne­ous devel­op­ment of a small number of se­ries. Wittwer’s oeuvre is like the pat­tern of overlapping, con­centric circles that results from throw­ing a handful of stones into water. For Verwehung, Wittwer threw—to stick with the image—a large sin­gle stone into the water, given that it opened a new se­ries that could be described as “Eastern Prus­sian Idyll and Expul­sion”. The tit­u­lar principal work of this show was a cycle of 77 nearly monochromatic water­colours whose motives were based on pre World War II photographs found on the inter­net. This treasure trove of images is of sim­i­lar importance to the fur­ther devel­op­ment of this se­ries as the famous “Atlas” was for Ger­hard Richter’s paint­ings.

It is thus not surpris­ing that the vis­itor of this show once again encounters motives from Verwehung—this time on canvas, and along­side motives from earlier se­ries. Wittwer’s impres­sive dis­cip­line in stick­ing to top­ics increases the viewer’s joy of recog­ni­tion. He began using and manip­u­lat­ing Old Mas­ters and anony­mous fam­ily snapshots as far back as the early 90s, and ‘groves’, ‘houses’ and ‘inte­r­i­ors’ already appeared in his paint­ings back then. Those who have fol­lowed his work over the last 20 years will expe­r­i­ence a déjà-vu that does not bore but fas­cinate as it uncov­ers ever new lay­ers of mean­ing in the same motive.

The “Wäldchen” (Grove), that has given the exhi­bi­tion its title graces the small­est canvas—and is by no means the nat­u­ral idyll one might expect. Naked trunks and branches in the foreground as well as an omi­nous red in the background point to the fact that this is a for­est on fire. It is no place of repose, not even the viewer’s gaze finds a point of rest. It is a uto­pos, a non-place so typ­ical of Wittwer’s repertoire, seem­ingly famil­iar but nonethe­less ambiva­lent and threat­en­ing. It is also one of the few images that is not based on a photo­graph found online.

At sec­ond glance we can also spot a fire in the dark image “Im Garten” (In the Gar­den). The two chil­dren in the foreground, rem­i­nis­cent of Hänsel and Gre­tel, might be grinn­ing at the viewer, but will soon take off as the house in the background is engulfed by flames.

The “Drei Schwest­ern” (Three Sis­ters), too, are star­ing frontally at the observer. We already encountered them in Verwehung and it is still unclear whether they are wear­ing their but­toned-up coats to Sun­day mass—or whether they are gett­ing ready to flee their wintery home.

The almost mon­u­mental “Winter­landschaft” (Winter Landscape), how­ever, def­i­nitely deals with the theme of flight. Horses pull a fully laden hay carriage through a snowy landscape. The paint­ing’s colour scheme is extremely reduced, but very clev­erly con­strued: the primary colour blue turns up in both cool and warm tones, and is fur­ther enhanced by a comple­mentary note of peach in the trees in the background. While Wittwer ren­ders clearly the motive of the carriage in flight, we find a deep ambiva­lence in the time of day. The pale circle in the sky could both be the sun and a full moon. The scene’s stage-like qual­ity is fur­ther ampli­fied by its careful com­po­si­tion (with the bit of ruin on the left counter­posed to the tree on the right).

The image “Narr” (Fool), remains mys­te­r­i­ous even to those who know the draw­ing on which it is based, “Laute spie­len­der Narr, ein Bein über den Nacken leg­end” (Fool Playing the Lute, One Leg Slung Over His Neck), 1605, by Anton Möller the Elder. The bizarre anatomy might be explained with a woo­den leg that seems to pro­trude from the fool’s torso, with a small dog jump­ing at it. On this read­ing, the ‘leg’ slung over the neck would merely be a trouser leg, use­less to the one-legged fool. The scene is by no means amus­ing, the pres­ence of a fool notwith­stand­ing. At best, he reminds us of the fig­ure of the jug­gler at a country fair—more likely, though, we are looking at a casu­alty of war. Both the orig­inal draw­ing and Wittwer’s paint­ing surprise with their piti­less gaze.

In “Inter­ieur” (Inte­r­ior), strange blotches of colour seem to float in the hallway of an uninhab­ited house. They do not have a func­tion in the inte­r­ior and escape a fig­u­ra­tive approach. Wittwer here plays with the fact that, upon view­ing an image that is rep­re­senta­tional rather than abs­tract, our con­scious­ness of the pro­cess by which it was painted imme­di­ately recedes into the background. As he puts it, “I simply put pig­ments onto canvas in a par­tic­u­lar order”. With the float­ing blotches, in which our gaze, schooled as it is by sci­ence-fic­tion, imme­di­ately recog­nises a fright­en­ing appari­tion, the artist is merely point­ing us to the colour as such. In a related paint­ing, “Haus” (House), we see a standard issue lit­tle house with walled-up windows. It might stand some­where close to the grove in “Wäldchen”, and its inside might be full of float­ing blotches of colour. Wittwer refers to it as the “painter’s house”, hint­ing at the her­metic qual­i­ties of the artis­tic pro­cess: the painter as alchemist looks inward, not out­ward.

Just like the “Haus”, the chromat­ically fas­cinat­ing image “Car­a­van neg­a­tiv”, too, is a non-place—or indeed the “Anderer Ort” (Other Place) in the exhi­bi­tion’s title. This is also true for the fer­ris wheel’s silhou­ette in “Abend” (Evening). In the background of the sup­posed fair a viaduct reaches towards the evening sky, which evoke Caspar David Friedrich’s depic­tions of ruins.

In “Der Tanz neg­a­tiv nach Wat­teau” (The Dance Neg­a­tive After Wat­teau), Wittwer seems to have found an idyll that is dis­turbed by nei­ther fire nor flight: In Wat­teau’s 1720 orig­inal, a coquettish girl is about to do a lit­tle dance for her three young compan­ions. One of them plays the flute, while the girl smiles at the observer. Even Fred­er­ick the Great fell for the charms of this image, which he acquired for his Potsdam res­i­dence in 1766. Within a work of art’s history of recep­tion, we may choose to ignore its provenance. It is thus only for the ini­tiated that the idyll of this lit­tle dance is dark­ened by the fact that Hitler acquired this paint­ing for his per­sonal col­lec­tion in 1942. Today it hangs in the Berliner Gemäldega­lerie, where Wittwer came across it on one of his reg­u­lar vis­its. He knew noth­ing of the dark blotches that mar its past.

The exhi­bi­tion “Andere Orte—Wäldchen” comprises 25 paint­ings that were cre­ated in 2010 and 2011.

For images and further information, please visit www.nolan-judin.de

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