CHRISTOPH PÖGGELER – PARADISE
2016-05-30Christoph Pöggeler’s latest paintings from his Düsseldorf studio in this solo exhibition titled Paradies, the German word for paradise, derived from the ancient Eastern Iranian word pairi-daeza, a place of eternal harmony. The show pivots around a composition with the same title, a 122x216cm piece of wood on which a broad strip of blue sky is painted above a partially interrupted section of fence. The artist‘s preference for painting on wood was evident in last September’s group exhibition at Positions in Berlin, when his works such as Schwarze Löcher (2014) and Alte Zypressen (2014) demonstrated Pöggeler’s preference for working on material that has had a life of its own. Remarkable is the fact that sky and fence are meticulously portrayed in a Dürer-like old master’s style, whereas the rest of the tableau is left unpainted, leaving the natural grain of the wood to speak for itself.
There are objective contrasts, abstract contradictions and still harmonies in Pöggeler’s style. Diptychon (2016) shows two nudes on separate pieces of wood. A more reserved young male is painted onto the surface of a vertical plank whereas a bolder young female seems to spring out of a splendidly marked circular piece of wood. The background surface of natural wood with its innate design is embellished only in part by the artist’s soft yet precise painterly strokes. Comparing this new piece with Pöggeler’s Schwarze Löcher, of well-clad businessmen depicted on a rough, used table top, one is again reminded of Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objecivity, the short intense period of realistic painting during Germany’s Weimar Republic that arose in reaction to expressionism.
Opposite – Paradise, 2016
Exhibition runs through till July 2nd, 2016
MAERZ CONTEMPORARY
Potsdamer Strasse 67
D – 10785
Berlin
Germany
