Kunsthalle Düsseldorf

Curated by Katharina Bruns

For MUR BRUT 24, Janis Löhrer has created an artwork for a wall in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf parking garage.

The affect or feeling of shame is a deeply human feeling, which also experiences innovations here and there under different conditions and changing norms. Since it is very closely linked to (individual) perception and the sense of sight, it continually appears as a feeling or theme in visual art, thus addressing the social space that influences us as people within a societal structure.

Shame and the feelings it triggers are a theme in many of Janis Löhrer’s paintings, and also appear as a theme and motif in the mural on tiles for the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf parking garage. He painted nude figures on the tiles with blue paint in delicate brushstrokes.

In an interaction between closeness and distance, the viewer is given an intimate look at pictorial questions about homosexual desire, the unexpected and the private in public spaces.

What do we experience when looking at the mural? What do we feel when looking at the ashamed figures duplicated many times over? What is the reason for shame? And “where does shame get its vitality?” (Heinz Strunk: Fleckenteufel, 2009)
Janis Löhrer studied fine art with a specialization in painting from 2012 to 2019 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He lives and works in Düsseldorf and is co-founder of AURA Kunstraum in Düsseldorf-Flingern.