Jürgen Klauke
15 Mar - 12 May 2007
JÜRGEN KLAUKE
"Aesthetische Paranoia" - New Photographic work and Drawings
Galería Helga de AlvearM
15th March– 12th May 2007
Opening Hours: 11 am -2 pm & 4:30 - 8:30 pm
Opening: Thursday 15th March 2007, at 8 pm
Galería Helga de Alvear is proud to present the exhibition Aesthetische Paranoia, New Photographic work and Drawings by the German artist Jürgen Klauke (lives and works in Cologne).
For over three decades now, Klauke has built a comprehensive and ongoing body of work. Indisputably one of Germany’s most important artists, his work came into the spotlight in the 1970s with the development of conceptual experiences very much in vogue at that time.
In his work, Klauke is concerned with existential postulates, addressing the everyday, boredom, madness, obsessions and absurdity, while questioning issues like identity and sexuality, the male/female opposition, the distribution of roles, violence and imagination, often from a highly personal viewpoint not exempt from a certain dosage of humour.
While he has mostly explored the above concepts in photographic works, Klauke also resorts to performance, actions and happenings. Besides, in his early stages, he earned a name for his drawings, and used newspapers and books as means for artistic expression. For this artist, drawing and gouache continue playing a fundamental role, representing a way of thinking and a source for other artistic manifestations.
Since the 1970s, a time when life was increasingly experienced in bars and in the streets, after completing his training at the Kunstakademie Köln, Klauke began to use photography as his expressive medium, borrowing his inspiration from the night life typical of that time in Germany. Using his own body as a starting point, make-up, grotesque prostheses and ambiguous clothing found their way into his formal vocabulary. Sexuality clearly acts as the driving force behind the photographic works he created at that time, bearing testimony of those wild years. It was from the 1980s onwards when he left the more lurid aspects behind and when his work adopted a more formally restrained tone, more synthesised although still exploring the same existential issues.
This exhibition features recent, medium and large size, photographic works, displaying a refined, restrained and elegant aesthetic from the new extensive body of works “Jenseits des Grenze des Konkreten”, 2003/2006 of which two aspects will be highlighted: Aesthetische Paranoia and Wackelkontakt.
The film Freischwinger (Free Flight), created in 2001 by the German filmmaker Peter Schwerfel, will also be projected during the exhibition. The film is a methodical portrait of the artist, reviewing his artistic trajectory in depth.
"Aesthetische Paranoia" - New Photographic work and Drawings
Galería Helga de AlvearM
15th March– 12th May 2007
Opening Hours: 11 am -2 pm & 4:30 - 8:30 pm
Opening: Thursday 15th March 2007, at 8 pm
Galería Helga de Alvear is proud to present the exhibition Aesthetische Paranoia, New Photographic work and Drawings by the German artist Jürgen Klauke (lives and works in Cologne).
For over three decades now, Klauke has built a comprehensive and ongoing body of work. Indisputably one of Germany’s most important artists, his work came into the spotlight in the 1970s with the development of conceptual experiences very much in vogue at that time.
In his work, Klauke is concerned with existential postulates, addressing the everyday, boredom, madness, obsessions and absurdity, while questioning issues like identity and sexuality, the male/female opposition, the distribution of roles, violence and imagination, often from a highly personal viewpoint not exempt from a certain dosage of humour.
While he has mostly explored the above concepts in photographic works, Klauke also resorts to performance, actions and happenings. Besides, in his early stages, he earned a name for his drawings, and used newspapers and books as means for artistic expression. For this artist, drawing and gouache continue playing a fundamental role, representing a way of thinking and a source for other artistic manifestations.
Since the 1970s, a time when life was increasingly experienced in bars and in the streets, after completing his training at the Kunstakademie Köln, Klauke began to use photography as his expressive medium, borrowing his inspiration from the night life typical of that time in Germany. Using his own body as a starting point, make-up, grotesque prostheses and ambiguous clothing found their way into his formal vocabulary. Sexuality clearly acts as the driving force behind the photographic works he created at that time, bearing testimony of those wild years. It was from the 1980s onwards when he left the more lurid aspects behind and when his work adopted a more formally restrained tone, more synthesised although still exploring the same existential issues.
This exhibition features recent, medium and large size, photographic works, displaying a refined, restrained and elegant aesthetic from the new extensive body of works “Jenseits des Grenze des Konkreten”, 2003/2006 of which two aspects will be highlighted: Aesthetische Paranoia and Wackelkontakt.
The film Freischwinger (Free Flight), created in 2001 by the German filmmaker Peter Schwerfel, will also be projected during the exhibition. The film is a methodical portrait of the artist, reviewing his artistic trajectory in depth.