Leonhard Hurzlmeier
14 Sep - 20 Oct 2012
LEONHARD HURZLMEIER
13 Portraits
14 September - 20 October 2012
ANDREAS GRIMM MUNCHEN is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of Leonhard Hurzlmeier at the gallery. In the exhibition “13 Portraits” the artist will present 13 works that deal with the different possibilities of abstract portraits. Leonhard Hurzlmeier (born 1983) lives and works in Munich.
The history of portrait painting in the European art history reflects important cultural and religious developments: The early Christian church was very successful in eliminating the depiction of individuals from the permitted canon of subjects, thereby interrupting a long tradition of portrait art that had been established during Antiquity, which nowadays we only can suspect from looking at the marvelous late Antique Roman-Egyptian mummy portraits. With the dawn of the modern era and the Renaissance the portrait was rehabilitated as a worthy piece of art – an emancipation beyond the representations of sacred contexts.
The “13 Portraits” by Leonhard Hurzlmeier are connected to the Renaissance portraits with regards to their content (as well as their composition) because it is not the “realistic” portrayal of the person that is of importance, but in the spirit of humanism, mankind itself.
Stylistically the exhibited works mark an evolution in Hurzlmeier’s oeuvre from ornamental abstraction toward a more figural imagery. In a very sensible fashion he dissects the symbol of human identity – the face and body- into geometric, constructed shapes. Hurzlmeier’s aesthetics feeds itself from a clever play of contrasts: Opaque color fields face transparent ones, smooth and shiny surfaces are set against rough structures. Besides the obvious references to Renaissance portraiture and classical Modernism, the artist also found inspiration in Romaic illumination, which was based on complex geometrical constructions. Unlike the Roman illuminators, however, Leonhard Hurzlmeier does not eliminate the geometry of his paintings but elevates it to one of the main element of his art.
The portraits represent historical figures (e.g. “Friedrich Nietzsche”, “Susan Sontag”) as well as human archetypes (e.g. “Man with Beard”, “Tamara”). The intense abstraction of the faces raises the question of the usefulness of such a distinction, as all portraits, historical or not, appear to be archetypes due to their simplification.
In Hurzlmeier’s portrait series there seems to be one very essential question: How far can the artist take the abstraction and still capture the personal traits of the depicted? Is it necessary to employ a naturalistic style to represent someone’s personality? Can a portrait ever really represent a human being? All these questions might occur when viewing the paintings and their answers are given by the artist.
13 Portraits
14 September - 20 October 2012
ANDREAS GRIMM MUNCHEN is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of Leonhard Hurzlmeier at the gallery. In the exhibition “13 Portraits” the artist will present 13 works that deal with the different possibilities of abstract portraits. Leonhard Hurzlmeier (born 1983) lives and works in Munich.
The history of portrait painting in the European art history reflects important cultural and religious developments: The early Christian church was very successful in eliminating the depiction of individuals from the permitted canon of subjects, thereby interrupting a long tradition of portrait art that had been established during Antiquity, which nowadays we only can suspect from looking at the marvelous late Antique Roman-Egyptian mummy portraits. With the dawn of the modern era and the Renaissance the portrait was rehabilitated as a worthy piece of art – an emancipation beyond the representations of sacred contexts.
The “13 Portraits” by Leonhard Hurzlmeier are connected to the Renaissance portraits with regards to their content (as well as their composition) because it is not the “realistic” portrayal of the person that is of importance, but in the spirit of humanism, mankind itself.
Stylistically the exhibited works mark an evolution in Hurzlmeier’s oeuvre from ornamental abstraction toward a more figural imagery. In a very sensible fashion he dissects the symbol of human identity – the face and body- into geometric, constructed shapes. Hurzlmeier’s aesthetics feeds itself from a clever play of contrasts: Opaque color fields face transparent ones, smooth and shiny surfaces are set against rough structures. Besides the obvious references to Renaissance portraiture and classical Modernism, the artist also found inspiration in Romaic illumination, which was based on complex geometrical constructions. Unlike the Roman illuminators, however, Leonhard Hurzlmeier does not eliminate the geometry of his paintings but elevates it to one of the main element of his art.
The portraits represent historical figures (e.g. “Friedrich Nietzsche”, “Susan Sontag”) as well as human archetypes (e.g. “Man with Beard”, “Tamara”). The intense abstraction of the faces raises the question of the usefulness of such a distinction, as all portraits, historical or not, appear to be archetypes due to their simplification.
In Hurzlmeier’s portrait series there seems to be one very essential question: How far can the artist take the abstraction and still capture the personal traits of the depicted? Is it necessary to employ a naturalistic style to represent someone’s personality? Can a portrait ever really represent a human being? All these questions might occur when viewing the paintings and their answers are given by the artist.