Antwerp, Belgium
Thursday, May 12, 2011–Thursday, June 30, 2011
Gotthard Graubner 'Raum der Stille'
May 12 - June 30, 2011
The exhibition “Gotthard Graubner – Raum der Stille” shows recent works by the artist. The artist prefers not to get lost in endless philosophies and theories about his work. If he was able to express his emotions through words, songs or writings, he would. But he choose to paint them. “Raum der Stille” therefore refers to the quiet activity of the artist as well as to the emotional reaction of the viewer of his work. The city is a noisy place and it has an effect on the minds of its denizens. The works within the gallery embody a place of silence, their composition based merely on colour and texture, removes a layer of narrative noise that we normally seek in art–a direction of what to think and feel.
Graubner's work generates an impression of vitality and concentration of the movement of colour meeting the energy of volume. In the 1960s, he began to integrate colour cushions into his pictures, placing them underneath the canvas and covering them with Perlon fabric, the so-called “Farbraumkörper”. This was an attempt to enhance the spatial effects of colour surfaces. Colour was the medium of the work itself. His unique way of achieving this allows his art to be independent of all connections to any kind of representation or theme. Colour does not identify objects: it is not linked to shape, but rather it tries to eliminate appearance. Graubner creates an imaginary space where interior surfaces in contrast with the backdrop take shape as if they were weightless. The German art historian Max Imdahl explains that “Farbraumkörper” or “colour-space-bodies” are spaces of sensation. In complete contrast to the linear and scientifically constructed central perspective, their spatiality cannot be measured and defies all attempts by the viewer to gain a rational command of them. With colour as an immediate visual reality which liberates the viewer from preconfigured and pragmatically dictated mechanisms of behavior and body as object invested with spirit.”