CHARLINE VON HEYL
2015-03-23Cologne in the late 1980s was dominated by a debate about the merits and pitfalls of painting. If there was any point of agreement, it was in rejection of the mythic landscapes of Anselm Kiefer and the gestural marks of the internationally acclaimed neo-expressionists. However esoteric the arguments about painting may seem today, they helped clarify a skeptical position on painterly authenticity that was adopted by artists such as Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen, friends and colleagues of von Heyl.
After studying with Joerg Immendorff in Hamburg, Charline von Heyl moved to Düsseldorf in the early 90s and worked for his studio. Düsseldorf’s geographic location gave the artist enough critical distance to ferment her own ideas away from the quagmire of the Cologne art scene. She began exhibiting her work in 1990, at Christian Nagel Galerie in Cologne. At the time, the gallery’s focus was on conceptual and contextual art. Von Heyl was its only unabashed painter. Her insistence provoked a dynamic and confrontational new dialog about painting in general and her work in particular, apart from the already established painting positions reigning in the Cologne of the eighties.
Opposite – Untitled (3/95, I), 1995
Exhibition runs through to May 2nd, 2015
Petzel Gallery
35 E 67th Street
NY 10065 New York
USA
