{"id":9636,"date":"2024-03-28T18:33:27","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T18:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/albrechtgehse-malerei.com\/?page_id=9636"},"modified":"2024-09-03T13:32:12","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T13:32:12","slug":"der-zyklus-kreaturen-und-phaenomene-michael-hametner","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/albrechtgehse-malerei.com\/en\/der-zyklus-kreaturen-und-phaenomene-michael-hametner\/","title":{"rendered":"Der Zyklus KREATUREN UND PH\u00c4NOMENE"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Albrecht Gehse's series \"CREATURES AND PHENOMENA\", created between 2021 and 2024 <\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Following his cycles \"Zeitenwende\", \"Aufruhr - 50 Bilder \u00fcber die Welt\", \"Transit\" and \"Weltfiguren\", the artist surprises us with a new series: \"Kreaturen und Ph\u00e4nomene\" comprises 30 pictures and was created between 2021 and 2024. Albrecht Gehse's special art of portraiture led him to depict the greats of the time, who have become heroes of his life, in \"Weltfiguren\". Much has changed since then, both in the world and in the life of the artist, who has established himself as a great German painter in contemporary art with his images of society. The world has not become any safer. Gehse experiences what threatens it, wars and catastrophes, as a personal shock. His large-format allegories are committed to the theme of life in distress, over-life in distress. He entered the art scene of his country in 1982 at the IX GDR art exhibition with the three veristically painted figure paintings \"Der Kohlenmann\", \"Kohlentr\u00e4ger Udo Hasenbein\" and \"Unterwegs\" (all created in 1981). From this beginning for the artist in his mid-twenties to the present day, there is a bridge in the choice of subject, rather than in the style of painting. Gehse's view of the injured, marginalised and socially declassed remains a starting point for his visual language. With the 30 pictures in \"Creatures and Phenomena\", he uses the power of his paintings to attack the arrogance of the strong against the weak.<\/p>

The celebration of Caspar David Friedrich's 250th birthday in 2024 will not only draw us to his paintings, but also to one or two of his artistic maxims. Friedrich wrote: \"The painter should not only paint what he sees before him, but also what he sees within himself.\" This is the source of his surreal, fantastical pictorial inventions.<\/p>

Gehse er\u00f6ffnet die Serie mit einem malerischen Paukenschlag. Er kombiniert auf dem Bild \u201eAufstieg\u201c<\/strong> Abstraktion und Figur. Die geometrischen Formen im oberen Bildteil (darin nicht zu \u00fcbersehen ein menschliches Auge) werden darunter von einem wilden Farbrausch, der die Assoziation st\u00fcrzenden Wassers schafft, gekontert. Den unteren Bildteil besetzen Eva mit Apfel und Schlange und ein roter Lachs, der \u2013 um sich fortzupflanzen \u2013 den Aufstieg schaffen muss, was dem Bild den Titel gab.<\/p>

As is often the case with Gehse, his art is open to different interpretations. His picture of the world is far too expansive to allow just one interpretation. It is not the first time that he \u201cleaves\u201d the earth when choosing a subject, as in the picture \u201cThe Apparition\u201d<\/strong>. What turns the water in the pool on the moon red? Has a battle already taken place extraterrestrially? Is the woman with the pointy hat of a sorceress in the foreground responsible for this? Does the violinist at the edge of the pool, whom the painter shows us as a pale apparition, bring salvation? \u2013 The painter remains \u201cneutral\u201d towards his image inventions; he does not want to proselytize anyone. Nevertheless, he attacks. The next picture in the series - Gehse has decided on a carefully considered sequence - with the title \u201cKlintholm Coast\u201d<\/strong> gives the appearance of an idyllic depiction of nature, but in the lower part it shows damaged nature with a field of rubble. Caspar David Friedrich's view into the gorge of the chalk cliffs - Gehse provokes this thought - can no longer be reconstructed in reality 200 years later. \u2013 When Abdul swings the hammer on\u201cAbdul with the Hammer\u201d<\/strong>you don\u2019t know whether he has already stopped the movement or whether he is going to deliver the blow. His raw power (and anger!) is directed against a world whose \u201csupporters\u201d watch world history from the balcony. It remains to be seen whether Abdul will turn the hammer against them. \u2013 Once again the artist has added a new variant to his major theme of life in distress.<\/p>

What follows is \u201cUferlos\u201d<\/strong> in the 30-part series, one of a total of four depictions of the turbulent sea. Because the painter chose the perspective so that the sea dominates the picture, it has the quality of a parable, which is also what the title of the picture \u201cShoreless\u201d leads to. Once again \u2013 and this can be seen in numbers alone in his \u201cCreatures and Phenomena\u201d series \u2013 he makes nature the main protagonist. In the storm images he releases the power of the sea and in doing so reminds the people who are absent in these images to respect them. \u2013 How the painter, in the subsequent diptych entitled \u201cWater on the Moon\u201d<\/strong>, draws a line from America\u2019s President Kennedy (significantly in the costume of a Russian bear) to jumping fish on the moon (to conquer the... Mondes called on Kennedy in 1962 with the words: \u201cWe are going to the moon because it is heavy\u201d), is another look into the artist's fantastic world of images.<\/p>

Gehse does not subordinate his inner echo to the external world to any picture plan when painting at the easel. He is unmistakably a realistic painter, but his realism is that of the dream, the fantasy, the unconscious. For the artist, the image is a medium of universal imagination. When he follows the unconscious as a painter, what other great artists have already discovered occurs: sometimes the picture is smarter than its creator. For this reason alone, questions that torment the artist with wishes for interpretation are prohibited. Phenomena that appear as a term in the title of the series are extraordinary phenomena. They can only perceive with their senses, but not their head.\u00a0<\/p>

Gehse consistently translates thoughts and visions into fantastic images. He has an extraordinary gift for this. For example, his admiration for the former American Secretary of State prompted the creation of \u201cBetween the Blocks\u201d<\/strong> and \u201cBalance\u201d<\/strong>. Here the translation stays close to the life of the real figure when he invents icebergs for the abstract term \u201cblocks\u201d and a tightrope walker for the idea of \u200b\u200bthe balance between West and East. Both pictures were taken barely ten days before Kissinger's death. They have an astonishing intensity that makes you think you can hear Kissinger's slightly hoarse voice. \u2013 The two pictures \u201cDrummer I\u201d<\/strong> and \u201cDrummer II\u201d<\/strong> with portraits of the Nobel Prize winner for literature G\u00fcnter Grass use more complex metaphors. A drummer \u2013 and that doesn\u2019t just mean his Oskar Matzerath from \u201cTin Drum\u201d \u2013 was the writer inside and outside of his literature. Knowing Grass's biography, they are fish that are throated and bled as a symbol of peace for the World War II soldier Grass is a symbol of the dignity of dying. An image interpretation that assumes the presence of the past in the present. Something that probably had a strong influence on Grass's life and work.<\/p>

The artist repeatedly shows himself to be inspired by current perceptions, to which he never reacts directly, but rather in the language of metaphor. This is represented, among other things, by the pictures \u201cOn a Long Voyage\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 a refugee ship with a black, red and gold flag as the destination of the escape - and \u201cExodus from Paradise\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 the triptych , which shows the causality of destruction and flight very impressively and whose parts of the image immediately make a connection to the wars in Syria and Ukraine. The result is a three-part picture with iconographic effect. Similar to Gehse's \u201cVictory Celebration\u201d where bloodlust clouds the senses of the reeling victors. The answer to violence and barbarism is the picture \u201cThe Procession of People,\u201d in which the artist expressively made expulsion the subject of the picture. \u2013 <\/strong> Gehse\u2019s social images cut into our times like a knife.<\/p>

The artist - whose intellectual and formal spaciousness is extraordinary - translates his inner world into dreams and nightmares in many of his pictorial inventions. On the one hand, if we find the sea as well as fish and sea creatures as projection surfaces for the theme of nature, this is the case in \u201cDreamed\u201d<\/strong>, \u201cMeeting at the Cape\u201d <\/strong>and \u201cAt the window\u201d<\/strong>the sensed and unconscious that he follows in his imagery. The social images, which are heavily influenced by surreal elements, become allegories. They often appear as glimpses into a ghostly world - freed by the artist from the obligation to objectivity and image.<\/p>

In order to avoid the directness of expression and a slide into messianic-political space, the artist treats the canvas as a place of dreams and nightmares. In \u201cTraumt\u201d he has brought together figures on the screen that cannot be connected or interpreted, as happens in a dream. He did a similar thing with \u201cMeeting at the Cape\u201d and \u201cThe Window,\u201d two particularly meaningful images due to their conceptual and formal complexity. With the tableaux of his dreams, the artist releases himself from the enigma of the interconnected figures and picture elements.<\/p>

It should not be overlooked that in addition to the large society pictures with \"David and Goliath\"<\/strong> and with \"Hero Worship\"\" Gehse includes two smaller pictures that, in the selection, have more of the character of one Possess arabesque. He also included such an intimate portrait (\u201cWoman with a Blue Blouse \u2013 Denisa\u201d)<\/strong> in the series. In doing so, the painter of social images that attack shows his equally existing ability to create quiet images.<\/p>

The artist uses his own imagery for his stories. In \u201cFear of Flying\u201d<\/strong> he places a very small hang glider between two rocks. With this metaphor he comes very close to our daring life situation today. Gehse's figure sails narrowly between two rocks. It would be her end if she hit one of the rocks. This danger gives rise to a very real fear of flying for the figure, but the viewer of the picture also experiences it as a metaphor for survival in distress, a theme on which Gehse has been working on his artwork for more than forty years. \u2013 A particularly impressive example of surreal image creation can be found in \u201cUnder the Stage\u201d<\/strong>. A volcanic eruption at the top, a ghostly, icy underwater world in the lower half. The painter counteracts the glow of the lava with ice. The picture only found its final top and bottom later on (only when the painter turned it upside down!). The composition was an expression of how everything is connected to everything else - the volcano with the ice block. The unity created on the screen creates a critical balance in reality. By the way: What has the fish on the right in the picture lost? The unreality that the painter creates with image inventions like these frees the image from the constraints of realism. At the same time, it complicates its interpretation. But isn't the fish beautifully painted? Who would want to miss him? Art doesn't have to adhere to logic. Gehse doesn't.<\/p>

When the painter concludes his series \u201cCreatures and Phenomena\u201d with the picture \u201cYou can see them under water\u201d<\/strong> then he once again reaffirms the credo of his art. The sea, which he favors as a metaphor for unleashed power and unbridled freedom, is populated by unsympathetic sea creatures that one would rather not meet. Even the maritime world \u2013 the artist seems to want to say \u2013 is not as idyllic and peaceful as it appears on the surface. In this picture, Gehse enters into a dialogue with the poet Bertolt Brecht, who wrote the final verses for his \u201cThreepenny Opera\u201d: \u201cFor some are in the dark. And the others are in the light. And you only see them in the light. You can\u2019t see those in the dark.\u201d \u2013 The law of survival: eat and be eaten applies in society and nature, including under water. From this the painter developed the parable for one of his most powerful images of society.<\/p>

Most of the pictures in the new series \u201cCreatures and Phenomena\u201d have an astonishing surreal fantasy that expands the pictorial spaces. With this, but also with the dominant blue tones of his imagery, for example, he makes himself unmistakable. Each of the 30 images offers the viewer the quality of an optical experience, even where it remains mysterious. The sequence creates a precisely calculated rhythm, which increases impressively with the last pictures in the series \u2013 \u201cMeeting at the Cape\u201d, \u201cUnder the Stage\u201d, \u201cAt the Window\u201d, \u201cDreamed\u201d and \u201cYou Can See Those Under Water\u201d. has. This arises because Albrecht Gehse's parables are far-reaching and fresh. Sometimes you look at the pictures with bated breath. I feel like that.<\/p>

Michael Hametner, March 2024<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zu Albrecht Gehses zwischen 2021 und 2024 entstandener Serie \u201eKREATUREN UND PH\u00c4NOMENE\u201c Nach seinen Zyklen \u201eZeitenwende\u201c, \u201eAufruhr \u2013 50 Bilder \u00fcber die Welt\u201c, \u201eTransit\u201c und \u201eWeltfiguren\u201c \u00fcberrascht der K\u00fcnstler mit einer neuen Serie: \u201eKreaturen und Ph\u00e4nomene\u201c umfasst 30 Bilder und ist zwischen 2021 und 2024 entstanden. Albrecht Gehses besondere Kunst des Portr\u00e4ts lie\u00df ihn in […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9632,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"elementor_header_footer","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-9636","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/albrechtgehse-malerei.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/albrechtgehse-malerei.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/albrechtgehse-malerei.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albrechtgehse-malerei.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albrechtgehse-malerei.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9636"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/albrechtgehse-malerei.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9866,"href":"https:\/\/albrechtgehse-malerei.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9636\/revisions\/9866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albrechtgehse-malerei.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/albrechtgehse-malerei.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}