Meuser
27 Apr - 23 Jun 2012
MEUSER
und Erich mittendrin
27 April - 23 June 2012
Gallery Weekend Berlin April 27-29
Galerie Nordenhake is pleased to present an exhibition with new sculptures by Meuser, one of the most significant German artists of his generation. The exhibition loosely follows the logic of a strange publicly-accessible domestic environment. It playfully alludes through the title to the former Palast der Republik, familiarly called ‘Erichs Lampenladen’ in the GDR’s time.
His works reverberate with material transformation and decay as well as with poetic internal collisions and contradictions that cause his sculptures to oscillate between seeming beautiful and ugly, elegant and awkward, graceful and burdened. As an example of this attitude, one can see in his “lamp”-works where the supposed functionality is completely negated if not parodied. As a seemingly useful object, it suggests a purpose, but it is of no real use as a lamp, and the function is only suggested by its shape.
Meuser traverses a territory in which the sublime and the ludicrous, passion and indifference, depression and levity keep eclipsing one another, or the possibility or need for such distinctions fades away. Precise and subtle, Meuser’s work is only as ambiguous as life.
Meuser was born in 1947 in Essen. Between 1968 and 1976, he studied with Joseph Beuys and Erwin Heerich at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf. In May 2008, a major retrospective of his work titled “Woman rides, the horse goes on foot” was featured at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Other solo exhibitions include the Staatliche Galerie Karlsruhe (2011), Kunstverein Oldenburg (2003), Staatliche Kunstakademie der Bildenden Künste, Karlsruhe (1996), and Kunsthalle Zurich (1991). He has participated in several group exhibitions including Ruinöse Abstraktion, Bonner Kunstverein (2007), Faster! Bigger! Better! at ZKM Museum für Neue Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe (2006), EXIT- Ausstieg aus dem Bild, at ZKM (2002) and Superman in Bed, Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund (2001). In 1992 he participated in documenta IX in Kassel. His works also belong to numerous art collections including the Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Neue Galerie Graz, and the Contemporary Art Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn.
und Erich mittendrin
27 April - 23 June 2012
Gallery Weekend Berlin April 27-29
Galerie Nordenhake is pleased to present an exhibition with new sculptures by Meuser, one of the most significant German artists of his generation. The exhibition loosely follows the logic of a strange publicly-accessible domestic environment. It playfully alludes through the title to the former Palast der Republik, familiarly called ‘Erichs Lampenladen’ in the GDR’s time.
His works reverberate with material transformation and decay as well as with poetic internal collisions and contradictions that cause his sculptures to oscillate between seeming beautiful and ugly, elegant and awkward, graceful and burdened. As an example of this attitude, one can see in his “lamp”-works where the supposed functionality is completely negated if not parodied. As a seemingly useful object, it suggests a purpose, but it is of no real use as a lamp, and the function is only suggested by its shape.
Meuser traverses a territory in which the sublime and the ludicrous, passion and indifference, depression and levity keep eclipsing one another, or the possibility or need for such distinctions fades away. Precise and subtle, Meuser’s work is only as ambiguous as life.
Meuser was born in 1947 in Essen. Between 1968 and 1976, he studied with Joseph Beuys and Erwin Heerich at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf. In May 2008, a major retrospective of his work titled “Woman rides, the horse goes on foot” was featured at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Other solo exhibitions include the Staatliche Galerie Karlsruhe (2011), Kunstverein Oldenburg (2003), Staatliche Kunstakademie der Bildenden Künste, Karlsruhe (1996), and Kunsthalle Zurich (1991). He has participated in several group exhibitions including Ruinöse Abstraktion, Bonner Kunstverein (2007), Faster! Bigger! Better! at ZKM Museum für Neue Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe (2006), EXIT- Ausstieg aus dem Bild, at ZKM (2002) and Superman in Bed, Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund (2001). In 1992 he participated in documenta IX in Kassel. His works also belong to numerous art collections including the Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Neue Galerie Graz, and the Contemporary Art Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn.