Archive

Group Show

TRIALOGUE - Delicate Strength

Works by 3 artists in TRIALOGUE ... more >

This year, all our physical presentations are titled MONOLOGUE, DIALOGUE or TRIALOGUE – they are single, 2-person or 3-person exhibitions. A subtitle explains the respective thematic focus according to which the artistic positions were selected. In the case of "TRIALOGUE – Delicate Strength", we juxtapose painterly and sculptural works by three artists who express themselves formally and/or conceptually through strength, but also delicacy – for example, based on the materials used or the content told.

Vittorio Bianchi (*1982, lives and works in Milan) acts within the spatial dimension of the surface of the fabric, his privileged artistic medium. The artist goes beyond its limits through a gestural scraping action that attacks the material, in a way that upsets its structure without betraying it: not an act of rupture, in fact, but of revelation, aimed at supporting the urgency of the underlying layer to break onto the surface from the depth that holds back it. He investigates the sleeping spaces of memory that flow inside the fibers, reviving them in the relief of a breath that regains possession of its legitimate interlude. His is a deaf gesture in which the phrasing woven into the voiceless history of the material echoes. The surface becomes sensitive skin, caressed by the revealing vehemence of the action that exposes its filaments, as if they were the rib of the anatomy of the eternal flow of history. In doing so, he restores a truce in the opposition between tradition and innovation, a calm that invites a delicate reconciliation in the relationship of interdependence between the persistence of a collective cultural identity and the one of the warp that generated it. (Marialuisa Pastò, curator)

José Gomes' (*1968 in Brazil, lives and works in Cologne) artistic work is characterised by two elements - nature as the main motif and its inexhaustible ductus. The environment reveals itself as a sensitive, delicate, fragile, seductive, necessary, imperishable part of life. The works created by José Gomes for this exhibition were created as part of his work as a scholarship holder in a residency programme at the Botanical Garden and the Institute of Biology at the University of Rostock. The research and discussions, the immersion and observation of plants that the artist experienced there flowed into the series Firmitas - a Latin word meaning permanence, solidity, durability, stability, strength, resistance and reliability. These characteristics are also found in the plants analysed there. Based on these characteristics, man and science will promote not only human but also technological development in the course of climate change. The result is a series of collages made up of photographs of these plants. These were transferred to paper using a transfer technique and supplemented with drawings and watercolour. In the background are the natural aquifers that exist in Brazil and sustain the ecosystem. The works are a compendium of the diversity of natural resources that should show us the way to the future. (Tereza de Arruda, curator)

Inspired by ornaments and materiality as cultural-historical components of folk art, by fairy tales and myths as well as traditions and rituals, these influences appear in the work of the painter and ceramic sculptor Beate Höing (*1966, lives and works in Coesfeld) in a completely independent iconography. What actually exists, what is associated and what is remembered come together in an ambivalent play of reality and fiction, in which dream and nightmare, relaxation and fright lie close together. Content, materiality and form are inextricably linked. The artist's oil paintings, ceramic sculptures  and installations also convey an enthusiasm for the beauty, delicacy and aesthetics of things as well as a delight in playing with the creative possibilities. [...] The same is true of the ceramic works, which are created as an independent medium in interplay with painting. The ceramic material indirectly conveys the idea of kitsch, but also of traditional craftsmanship. This "mortgage" accommodates the content of the statement and is almost provocatively heightened by the artist. Incorporated knick-knacks and porcelain figurines, for centuries the epitome of bourgeois preferences, loved as decorative articles or souvenirs or dismissed as kitsch, offer scope for the imaginary and the fantastic. Figures of girls and boys, dreamers and sleepers, fairy-tale and mythical creatures and animals - the figures emerge fragilely from floral, opulent plinth elements, stand on their own or present themselves in figure arrangements, also in interaction with the painting. Beate Höing's works show a very poetic, sometimes ironic view of the past, tell of memories, dreams and surreal worlds, also with a humorous wink. (Jutta Meyer zu Riemsloh, curator)

Press article in the Kölnische Rundschau of 11/02/2023 ... more >


Pedestals with fairy tale creatures

Galerie Biesenbach shows in "Delicate Strength" works by José Gomes, Vittorio Bianchi, Beate Höing

by Hanna Styrie

The shards of crockery, vases and knick-knacks that the artist Beate Höing finds at household clearances and flea markets are given new honour in her bizarre figurative small sculptures. Cheap copies of Chinese vases, confectionery and sugar bowls serve her as pedestals for fairy-tale creatures and mythological figures, which she assembles from all kinds of fragments and figures she has shaped herself.

Playful Lightness
Wit and playful lightness go hand in hand with a pronounced sense of form and colour, and she also skillfully balances art and kitsch. Under the meaningful title "Delicate Strength", Beate Höing's ceramic assemblages can now be seen together with works by José Gomes and Vittorio Bianchi at Galerie Biesenbach.

Here, the detailed, allusive ceramics set a counterpoint to the predominantly quiet works of the Italian Vittorio Bianchi. He works on fabrics of all kinds with knives, scalpels and other tools with which he tears and scrapes away the fibres. With these brutal interventions, the artist creates his own patterns of great charm.

The rough structures stretched on a frame are in turn backed with glass fabric, creating the appearance of two-dimensionality.

He also applies the process of skeletonising and roughening to historical tapestry fabrics. Here the injuries are more visible, especially as he leaves the coloured silk threads of the floral decorations hanging.

The main theme of the Brazilian-born José Gomes is endangered nature. His fine drawings move within the creation and destruction, life and death - always with reference to Brazilian nature and culture.

During a residency programme at the Botanical Garden and the Institute of Biology at the University of Rostock, a series of complex collages was created under the impression of the research he conducted there. He supplemented his photographs of plants withstanding climate change with ink drawings.

Pale blue spots indicate the groundwater resources that exist in his native Brazil, which sustain the ecosystem. Here, Gomes gives subtle expression to the struggle to maintain the ecological balance by artistic means. José Gomes lives and works in Cologne.

13/01 – 25/02/2023

Vittorio Bianchi

 

 

 

back

Essential

Essential cookies are essential for the operation of the website and can therefore not be deactivated.

Cookie-Informations

Statistiken

Statistics cookies allow the collection of anonymous information about how you use our website. They help us to improve your user experience and our content.

Cookie-Informations

External media

External media cookies allow media content to be loaded from external sources. They can also be activated when you visit the website if you encounter blocked media content.

Cookie-Informations