Daniel Richter
10001nights
3 September–6 November 2011
kestnergesellschaft
Goseriede 11
30159 Hanover, Germany
www.kestnergesellschaft.de
Opening hours:
Tuesday through Sunday and on holidays 11 am–6 pm
Thursday 11 am–8 pm
Mondays closed
The exhibition “10001nights” at the kestnergesellschaft will include new paintings and drawings from 2008 to 2011 dealing with the vocabulary of the line. The starting point for these works is the collection of fantastical tales known as the “1001 Nights.” Richter transforms these Arabic stories into menacing, fairytale-like scenarios that allude to an orientalism which has changed since 9/11. As the title indicates, Richter’s works contain an extra zero—a Ground Zero—that gives the fantastical element an eerie quality. These new works distance themselves from the tight crowds and urban settings of earlier paintings, and concentrate on very few protagonists in fictive landscapes. Allegoric duels are played out amidst these scenarios: anarchy in contrast to the state, domination versus oppression, the nomadic in comparison to the sedentary.
These irreconcilable situations are enriched by a formal variety. The new works are determined by a linear vocabulary that originally belonged to the medium of drawing, but is here applied in painterly terms. Richter composes the background of his canvases with color progressions that recall Morris Louis, ornamental lines that refer to Brice Marden and expressive lines that are reminiscent of Clyfford Still. These abstract-expressive forms are combined with mechanical lines taken from the geological sciences: cartographic or seismological drawings simulate a natural environment in his paintings.
A catalogue in German and English will be published in cooperation with Snoeck Verlag (Publishers), Cologne with contributions by Veit Görner, Kito Nedo, Anders Kold and Susanne Figner.
The kestnergesellschaft will offer a limited edition of a print similar to “Army of traitors.”
For more information please contact presse@kestnergesellschaft.de
*Image above:
Courtesy Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin.
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011.
Photo: Jochen Littkemann, Berlin.
