When Kasimir Malewitsch showed his work “Black Square” on a white background for the first time in 1915, it was as if it was a period at the end of a sentence – a bold terminal point at the end of the art of painting. For a more intense reduction of colour and form is almost unimaginable, a further development of the art of painting would be unthinkable. And yet, the fascination of the art of painting has never waned.
In an environment, in which artists since Malewitsch have expanded and renewed their definition of art multiple times, have not occupied themselves exclusively with new art media such as photography and video, but defined intergeneric, experimental and conceptual forms of expression, the painting stands as a strong thesis over what is none-the-less possible. It is the fascination for the interaction of the painter's eye and hand, and for the relationship between the visible world and the painting, that doesn't let go of the artist and of the viewer. This fascination secures the art of painting its rightful place as the main discipline of the visual arts.
SANATORIUM and Galerie Michael Schultz Berlin I Seoul I Beijing are showing in a joint exhibition under the title “Painted Images” four positions in contemporary painting from the program of the Galerie Michael Schultz:
SEO was born in 1977 in Korea. She studied in Gwangju (Korea) at the Cho-sun University and afterwards at the Universität der Künste in Berlin as the Master Student of Georg Baselitz. SEO has received numerous awards and has received the Beijing Art Award of the Caochangdi Art Association in 2010. Her works have been shown around the globe in many exhibitions and taken part in several major biennales.
Andy Denzler is an artist from Switzerland. Born in 1965, Denzler studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zürich and subsequently at the University of California in Los Angeles. He received his Master of Fine Arts at the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London. Denzler took part in two biennales and in 2014 was awarded the International Artist Residency from the Art Factory Budapest.
Born in 1960, artist Jean Y. Klein started attending the Académie St. Roch in Paris at the age of 16 and continued his studies afterwards at l’École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. In 1982 Klein continued studying at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. His works were shown internationally, among others as part of 3 biennales. He lives today in Berlin and on the Peloponnese in Greece.
Jochen Proehl was born in Lübeck in 1958 and spent his childhood and most of his youth in Istanbul. He studied at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin and was Master Student of Klaus Fußmann. He received residence grants from the state of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany and from the Foundation Kulturfonds. In addition Proehl was visiting professor at the Muthsius Hochschule in Kiel. Since 2013 he teaches at the Bahcesehir University in Istanbul and since 2017 is the artistic director of the university.
This exhibition intends to build a bridge between Istanbul and Berlin in terms of art and to cement the intimate artistic exchange between both countries.