David Batchelor & Andy Hope 1930
11 Oct - 14 Nov 2013
DAVID BATCHELOR & ANDY HOPE 1930
Why Paunt
curated by_Antonia Lotz
11 October - 14 November 2013
Why paint colours?
Why paint walls?
Why paint and form?
Why paint houses?
Why paint flowers?
Why paint canvases?
Why paint sculpture?
Why paint ovals Malewitch?
Why paint and sculpt?
Why paint Sundays?
Why paint grey, white or black?
Why paint and think?
Why paint paper?
Why paint suffering?
Why paint sober?
Why paint concrete?
Why paint and speak?
Why paint dates?
Why paint transparent?
Why paint stripes?
Why paint red?
Why paint bodies?
Why paint abstract?
Why paint painters?
Why paint yellow?
Why paint and sing?
Why paint beauty?
Why paint portraits?
Why paint blue?
Why paint monotone?
Why paint cruelty?
Why paint numbers?
Why paint mama?
Why paint boring?
Why paint wet?
Why paint squares?
Why paint flat?
David Batchelor (*1955 in Dundee, lives in London)
Andy Hope 1930 (*1963 in München, lebt in Berlin)
“Painting, the materiality of colours, the visual quality of colours, they lie deep within our organism. In case they are lightened up, they might be powerful and demanding. My nervous system is shaped by them. My brain is enflamed by their colours.” (K. Malevich, 1915)
Kasimir Malevich’s Black Square on a White Ground (1915) is the form of origin, point zero and, also, the starting point of Suprematism. It is with this piece that the artist liberated himself from all concreteness in order to create a new shapeless world. Black Square, together with Black Circle and Black Cross, forms the basis for the artistic system that is Suprematism. Circle and cross derive from the square, once by setting it into motion, once by dividing it. The white background of the paintings symbolizes the infinity of space in which all geometric forms float. Part of this suprematist utopia, which Malevich started to implement with his followers, the group UNOWIS (meaning “Champions of the New Art”), for all areas of life and living from 1920 onwards, is the dream of detaching oneself from gravity, of inhabiting the cosmos.
In 1928, Malevich recalls his beginnings in art and returns to figurative painting. In his later works, he shows people such as peasants and sportsmen but also houses in landscapes that are merely hinted at. The suprematist colour doctrine and system of dividing one form into many more are crucial for the composition and the choice of colour of the figures – their faces are reduced to various coloured oval surfaces.
The oeuvre of David Batchelor (born in Dundee, 1955; resident in London) covers photography, paintings, works on paper and three-dimensional structures. His way of dealing with colour, urbanity, abstraction and the tradition of monochromes can be seen in nearly all his works. His Blobs which he has chronologically numerated, their titles being their dates, only consist of varnish that he has poured onto dibond plates and their rectangular pedestals made from thinly applied matte black colour. The antipole of antiform and geometry, of precision and process as well as of sculpture and painting all boil down to working with the materiality and the multiplicity of colour. Batchelor’s latest exhibitions include Flatlands, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2013/14); Magic Hour, Gemeentmuseum, Den Haag (2012); Chromophilia: 1995–2010, Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro (2010); Backlights, Galeria Leme, São Paulo (2008); Color Chart, Museum of Modern Art, New York/Tate Liverpool (2008/09) and Unplugged, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh (2007).In 2000, Batchelor published his book Chromophobia, which deals with the fear of colours, with Reaktion Books, London where he will also publish his new work The Luminous and the Grey in 2014.
The paintings, sculptures, collages and drawings of Andy Hope 1930 (born in Munich, 1963; resident in Berlin) make reference to various concrete sources from the field of art history or popular culture. Two of his essential systems of reference, both of which share the year 1930, are the following: The rise of comics as a mass medium and the end of the projects of Suprematism as well as of Russian Constructivism, which the artist tries to revive and reformulate in terms of a “sub-history” (Hope). His four Time Machine paintings, which show ovals primed from black oil paint on orange-coloured canvas, are part of his series Medleys: These are paintings in which Hope has reverted to some motifs and compositions from earlier works, which he now combines in a new way. His original version of the Time Machine paintings, a black oval on white ground, shows Malevich’s Black Square, distorted by gravity as a consequence of the artist’s time travels. Hope’s latest exhibitions include Fruits de la Passion, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2012/13); Andy Hope 1930 When Dinosaurs Become Modernists, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2012); Medley Tour by Andy Hope 1930, Kestner Society, Hannover (2012); Detour – Landscape in Progress II, CAC Contemporary Art Club, Vienna 2011) and Andy Hope 1930, Goetz Collection, Munich (2010).
Why Paunt
curated by_Antonia Lotz
11 October - 14 November 2013
Why paint colours?
Why paint walls?
Why paint and form?
Why paint houses?
Why paint flowers?
Why paint canvases?
Why paint sculpture?
Why paint ovals Malewitch?
Why paint and sculpt?
Why paint Sundays?
Why paint grey, white or black?
Why paint and think?
Why paint paper?
Why paint suffering?
Why paint sober?
Why paint concrete?
Why paint and speak?
Why paint dates?
Why paint transparent?
Why paint stripes?
Why paint red?
Why paint bodies?
Why paint abstract?
Why paint painters?
Why paint yellow?
Why paint and sing?
Why paint beauty?
Why paint portraits?
Why paint blue?
Why paint monotone?
Why paint cruelty?
Why paint numbers?
Why paint mama?
Why paint boring?
Why paint wet?
Why paint squares?
Why paint flat?
David Batchelor (*1955 in Dundee, lives in London)
Andy Hope 1930 (*1963 in München, lebt in Berlin)
“Painting, the materiality of colours, the visual quality of colours, they lie deep within our organism. In case they are lightened up, they might be powerful and demanding. My nervous system is shaped by them. My brain is enflamed by their colours.” (K. Malevich, 1915)
Kasimir Malevich’s Black Square on a White Ground (1915) is the form of origin, point zero and, also, the starting point of Suprematism. It is with this piece that the artist liberated himself from all concreteness in order to create a new shapeless world. Black Square, together with Black Circle and Black Cross, forms the basis for the artistic system that is Suprematism. Circle and cross derive from the square, once by setting it into motion, once by dividing it. The white background of the paintings symbolizes the infinity of space in which all geometric forms float. Part of this suprematist utopia, which Malevich started to implement with his followers, the group UNOWIS (meaning “Champions of the New Art”), for all areas of life and living from 1920 onwards, is the dream of detaching oneself from gravity, of inhabiting the cosmos.
In 1928, Malevich recalls his beginnings in art and returns to figurative painting. In his later works, he shows people such as peasants and sportsmen but also houses in landscapes that are merely hinted at. The suprematist colour doctrine and system of dividing one form into many more are crucial for the composition and the choice of colour of the figures – their faces are reduced to various coloured oval surfaces.
The oeuvre of David Batchelor (born in Dundee, 1955; resident in London) covers photography, paintings, works on paper and three-dimensional structures. His way of dealing with colour, urbanity, abstraction and the tradition of monochromes can be seen in nearly all his works. His Blobs which he has chronologically numerated, their titles being their dates, only consist of varnish that he has poured onto dibond plates and their rectangular pedestals made from thinly applied matte black colour. The antipole of antiform and geometry, of precision and process as well as of sculpture and painting all boil down to working with the materiality and the multiplicity of colour. Batchelor’s latest exhibitions include Flatlands, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2013/14); Magic Hour, Gemeentmuseum, Den Haag (2012); Chromophilia: 1995–2010, Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro (2010); Backlights, Galeria Leme, São Paulo (2008); Color Chart, Museum of Modern Art, New York/Tate Liverpool (2008/09) and Unplugged, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh (2007).In 2000, Batchelor published his book Chromophobia, which deals with the fear of colours, with Reaktion Books, London where he will also publish his new work The Luminous and the Grey in 2014.
The paintings, sculptures, collages and drawings of Andy Hope 1930 (born in Munich, 1963; resident in Berlin) make reference to various concrete sources from the field of art history or popular culture. Two of his essential systems of reference, both of which share the year 1930, are the following: The rise of comics as a mass medium and the end of the projects of Suprematism as well as of Russian Constructivism, which the artist tries to revive and reformulate in terms of a “sub-history” (Hope). His four Time Machine paintings, which show ovals primed from black oil paint on orange-coloured canvas, are part of his series Medleys: These are paintings in which Hope has reverted to some motifs and compositions from earlier works, which he now combines in a new way. His original version of the Time Machine paintings, a black oval on white ground, shows Malevich’s Black Square, distorted by gravity as a consequence of the artist’s time travels. Hope’s latest exhibitions include Fruits de la Passion, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2012/13); Andy Hope 1930 When Dinosaurs Become Modernists, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2012); Medley Tour by Andy Hope 1930, Kestner Society, Hannover (2012); Detour – Landscape in Progress II, CAC Contemporary Art Club, Vienna 2011) and Andy Hope 1930, Goetz Collection, Munich (2010).