Hungry / Hungry, the current exhibition at Galerie Jochen Hempel, is curated by programme artist Andreas Schulze and features a full spectrum of photography, painting, drawing and objects. Loaded with everyday glances, it puts the chaos of the world and contemporary art into perspective. The viewer leaves happy, not only to have seen a great exhibition, but also somehow with the feeling that 2013 is going to be a good year.
Stephanie Kiwitt’s photography, printed on simple photo paper, documents wasteland imagery, showcasing utter transfixing beauty within disastrous landscapes through her isolated documentation. The American photographer Saul Leiter isolates aspects within his visual narrations, cutting into the composition in order to bring his images into new, abstract contexts. The paintings of Julia Schmidt blur the context of her imagery, using wet-on-wet painting techniques and an obnoxious peachy base of colour to challenge the works of the other artists. Perched in the corners, the works of Anne Morgenstern package the whole concept, betraying the secret presence of many additional layers of indescribable contradictions in the show as well as in real life. A special highlight of the show is a drawing of David Schnell, which intuitively houses both the positive and negative, with lines drawn and not drawn, making his landscape drawing burst into a kaleidoscope of new life.
At the centre point is the complex relationship between abstract and figurative. Attempts to understand photography as being purely documentary and painting as a formal medium are negated. Each artistic work is so strong and loud that it cancels the others out, but instead of ruining the complete presentation, the pieces weight the show, giving it an eerie form of life. They act as a Pandora’s box of glimpses, thoughts, feelings and ideas of everyday that one can again put away in their pocket, only to be faced with the weakness of not allowing it to stay closed.
The show is an absolute masterpiece that must be seen and experienced, not to mention documented and noticed. Schulze manages to intuitively challenge set clichés apparent in our world of art, going straight towards taboos such as positioning of the works, distance needed by the viewer, and the mixing of different media and artists. He runs towards the wave instead of away from it, and he and the exhibition overcome every obstacle presented.
HUNGRY / HUNGRY Through Feb 22 | Galerie Jochen Hempel, Lindenstr. 35, Kreuzberg, U-Bhf Kochstr., Tues-Sat 11-18, www.jochenhempel.com
