Krobath

MICHAEL BAUCH, THERESA EIPELDAUER, JUGOSLAV MITEVSKI & BENJAMIN ROTH
07 June – 06 September 2017

The current exhibition at the Krobath gallery is about painting as the primary medium of artistic expression due to its characteristics and the various materials, layers and structural levels on which it is based. The artists Michael Bauch, Theresa Eipeldauer, Jugoslav Mitevski and Benjamin Roth adhere to a minimalist formal language that is based on the aesthetics of abstraction and yet not only refers back to the visibility of the act of painting itself, but also to the properties of the panel painting as a three-dimensional object. For more than a century, the focus has been on a reduced vocabulary of colour and form. All of the artists featured in this exhibition take this a step further and, in different ways, also explore the role of the texture within the pictorial space as well as outside the surface of the paintings. The stretching of the canvas onto the base, the material and texture of the frame etc. – all of these aspects transform paintings into objects that challenge their own fundamental artistic parameters. The paintings in this exhibition thus explore the ontological existence of painting as an art, that is often subordinated to the reality of the visible.

The works exhibited here are like an assorted synopsis giving an overview of the latest analysis of the dispositif of painting beyond figurative and representational elements. The artists featured in this exhibition are all interested in textures that induce the fundamental quality of every painting. How can the process of painting itself be made visible? And where is its ontological origin? This is not so much about the direct relationship between the artist and their work of art as Martin Heidegger defines it in his essay The Origin of the Work of Art, but rather about the act of painting as the expression of artistic practice.

In his use of form and colour, Michael Bauch focuses on the repetition of a specific form in a single of in several different paintings, which exemplify the possibilities of reduced geometrical abstraction with various background colours. The works raise the question of the possibility of exponential reproduction and showcase the artist’s conceptual strategy.

Theresa Eipeldauer’s stern, graphically multiplied pictorial and three-dimensional arrangements are in pastels and in colours that are hard to classify. They evoke a transition from painting to spatial objects, which are neither two-, nor three-dimensional. With these works, the artist breaks the illusion that painting can ever master an actual transfer of reality. Optical replication and mimesis interact with each other.

In his works, Jugoslav Mitevski explores the conditions of shades, hatchings and geometrical placements within a mainly grey surface. The increasing density of lines on the one hand and the minimalist spreading of the colour (blue) on a monochrome panel (grey) on the other, maintains a balance in the image space that seems on the verge of tilting but is kept in check by the parameters.

Benjamin Roth focuses on the frame as a prerequisite element to support the painting surface. The works featured in this exhibition explore the frame in various ways, while the contents of the images take a back seat or are made visible through subtle geometrical hints. The surface of the image thus disappears as its own reality becomes visible.

Text: Walter Seidl
Translation: Mandana Taban


Michael Bauch, *Hamburg 1951, lives and works in Hamburg.
Theresa Eipeldauer, * Wien 1985, lives and works in Vienna.
Jugoslav Mitevski, * Backenheim 1978, lives and works in Berlin.
Benjamin Roth, * Amsterdam 1975, lives and works in Amsterdam.