Olaf Holzapfel
30 Apr - 13 Jun 2009
OLAF HOLZAPFEL
"At a Moment’s Notice"
30 April – 13 June 2009
Max Wigram Gallery, 99 New Bond Street, London
Max Wigram Gallery is pleased to announce At a Moment’s Notice, the first solo exhibition in London by German artist Olaf Holzapfel.
In his paintings, sculptures and installations Holzapfel elaborates spatiality as a juxtaposition of spots, forms and elements and looks at the gaps and overlaps between the physical experience of space and its representations. Focusing his attention on spaces of transition, Holzapfel’s abstract language encourages a non-linear perception of spatiality and explores the “fuzziness” of contemporary life, a result, the artist says, of the concurrence of real and virtual worlds.
A collector of traces, Holzapfel wanders through the built-up landscape of contemporary cities exploring the boundaries between language and perception, images and imagination. He draws on symbols of the urban environment such as road signs, maps and guidance systems to highlight subtle cultural variations and constructs visual interpretations of these through a condensed and conceptual visual language. Holzapfel develops the idea of liminality between imaginary and given reality, creating his works upon this very border and developing “conceptual models of a thought that does not progress in a linear manner, but can leap from one place to the next without needing to travel the interim path” (Astrid Mania).
The first floor of the gallery displays five paintings and a sculpture. The paintings are abstract re-elaborations of daily experiences displaying an intensified, compressed reading of urban spaces and observed nature. Despite their complexity, the paintings maintain a lucid, sophisticated structure. Holzapfel’s sculptures also relate to spatial crossing-over and transition of spatial forms. The acryl glass sculpture Drei Räume Grau (Three Grey Rooms), with its deformed bubble-like structure, addresses the classical spatial dichotomy of inside and outside and its intricate, smooth folds evoke the idea of inner and outer spaces of our physical being.
On the second floor of the gallery, Holzapfel presents a full room installation. Three Wände Gelb (Three Yellow Walls) is the largest work in the exhibition; it explores the readability of space and embodies the limit between the real and the imaginary. Here, the viewer is enclosed by a perimeter of three curved surfaces made from a matrix of interlocked cardboard modules. The overlaps of the modules generate an abstract pattern illustrating the translation of a surface into a space and the tension between two and three dimensions.
Holzapfel (b. 1969, Görlitz, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. This year he is doing solo shows at Kunstmuseum (Mülheim, Germany) and Galerie im Taxispalais (Innsbruck, Austria). In 2008 he had solo shows at Autocenter (Berlin) and Gallery Hussenot (Paris) and participated in group shows at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin); Anton Kern Gallery (New York) and Museum Felix De Boeck (Belgium). In 2007 he had solo shows at Galerie Johnen + Schöttle (Cologne); Galerie Gebr. Lehmann (Dresden) and Sabine Knust (Munich). Past projects have included Art Basel 37 (2006); Prague Biennale II (2005); Projektspace 4th Berlin-Biennale (2005) and group exhibitions at venues such as Thomas Dane Gallery (London, 2007); Martin Gropius Bau (Berlin, 2005) and the Leonhardi Museum (Dresden, 2003).
"At a Moment’s Notice"
30 April – 13 June 2009
Max Wigram Gallery, 99 New Bond Street, London
Max Wigram Gallery is pleased to announce At a Moment’s Notice, the first solo exhibition in London by German artist Olaf Holzapfel.
In his paintings, sculptures and installations Holzapfel elaborates spatiality as a juxtaposition of spots, forms and elements and looks at the gaps and overlaps between the physical experience of space and its representations. Focusing his attention on spaces of transition, Holzapfel’s abstract language encourages a non-linear perception of spatiality and explores the “fuzziness” of contemporary life, a result, the artist says, of the concurrence of real and virtual worlds.
A collector of traces, Holzapfel wanders through the built-up landscape of contemporary cities exploring the boundaries between language and perception, images and imagination. He draws on symbols of the urban environment such as road signs, maps and guidance systems to highlight subtle cultural variations and constructs visual interpretations of these through a condensed and conceptual visual language. Holzapfel develops the idea of liminality between imaginary and given reality, creating his works upon this very border and developing “conceptual models of a thought that does not progress in a linear manner, but can leap from one place to the next without needing to travel the interim path” (Astrid Mania).
The first floor of the gallery displays five paintings and a sculpture. The paintings are abstract re-elaborations of daily experiences displaying an intensified, compressed reading of urban spaces and observed nature. Despite their complexity, the paintings maintain a lucid, sophisticated structure. Holzapfel’s sculptures also relate to spatial crossing-over and transition of spatial forms. The acryl glass sculpture Drei Räume Grau (Three Grey Rooms), with its deformed bubble-like structure, addresses the classical spatial dichotomy of inside and outside and its intricate, smooth folds evoke the idea of inner and outer spaces of our physical being.
On the second floor of the gallery, Holzapfel presents a full room installation. Three Wände Gelb (Three Yellow Walls) is the largest work in the exhibition; it explores the readability of space and embodies the limit between the real and the imaginary. Here, the viewer is enclosed by a perimeter of three curved surfaces made from a matrix of interlocked cardboard modules. The overlaps of the modules generate an abstract pattern illustrating the translation of a surface into a space and the tension between two and three dimensions.
Holzapfel (b. 1969, Görlitz, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. This year he is doing solo shows at Kunstmuseum (Mülheim, Germany) and Galerie im Taxispalais (Innsbruck, Austria). In 2008 he had solo shows at Autocenter (Berlin) and Gallery Hussenot (Paris) and participated in group shows at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin); Anton Kern Gallery (New York) and Museum Felix De Boeck (Belgium). In 2007 he had solo shows at Galerie Johnen + Schöttle (Cologne); Galerie Gebr. Lehmann (Dresden) and Sabine Knust (Munich). Past projects have included Art Basel 37 (2006); Prague Biennale II (2005); Projektspace 4th Berlin-Biennale (2005) and group exhibitions at venues such as Thomas Dane Gallery (London, 2007); Martin Gropius Bau (Berlin, 2005) and the Leonhardi Museum (Dresden, 2003).