One of the central features in Justine Otto’s paintings, childhood and adolescence, is also evident in this current cycle of work. Her portraits are almost exclusively of girls and young women. However it is not the individuality of these objects that is portrayed, but the attributed role by the artist. The artist chooses to represent mostly childish role models, which are in transition from childhood to youth. The portraits are often expansive to include scenic presentations, which in the first instance are reflective of innocence and childlike diffidence. Closer scrutiny, reveals a perplexing almost surreal, dream like scenario which threatens to descent into chaos or an abyss. In a singularly playful manner, the figures vacillate between naivety and ambiguity. Even though there arises the feeling of melancholy, loneliness and yearning in some of her portraits, this belies the fact that the artist has not allocated these individuals passive roles. Quite the contrary she has given them very active roles ie they search, discover, in some instances even kill (albeit be it seen as fun, or in a playful manner). All nuances, activities and emotions, stand equally side by side. The protagonists are influenced by coincidences, over which they exercise no, or limited control. What remains, the underlying happening however, is never self explanatory or overtly evident. It is this ability for narrative, coupled with a vibrant expressiveness, that makes Justine Otto’s (pupil of Prof. Anger) work stand out. In recent years Justine Otto has found recognition in the art world and her work has been exhibited inter alia in Frankfurt and the Kunstverein Niebüll (art association), the Berlinische Galerie, the Kunsthaus Essen, Kunstverein in Aschaffenburg, Wiesbaden and Celle.
Opening hours: Tue.-Sat. 11am - 6pm
Special opening hours during the gallery weekend Fr., 30.4., 4-9pm Sat., 1.5., 10am - 6pm Sun., 2.5. 12am - 4pm
quelle heure est il au paradis - Artists Anonymous extended due to popular demand until the end of May 2010!
quelle heure est il au paradis - Artists Anonymous Vernissage: 12.2.2010, 6-9pm Exhibition duration: 13.2. - 25.4.2010
The gallery presents an important artistic position in the current international discourse: new works by Artists Anonymous (AA). AA is a group of artists working both in London and in Berlin, whose members, as the name implies, prefer to remain anonymous. They create together. Only the work of art is of importance, not the individual input. In principle this is a logical approach and is wonderfully refreshing, since the main focus when viewing art should be on the work itself and not the artist producing it. However this is a deliberate questioning of the contemporary cult-like status of artists, which often distracts from issues of content. The attitude off AA towards art has traditional roots: AA constitutes something like a mediaeval artist’s studio: it’s all about art and nothing else.
AA’s self-understanding, however, is very contemporary and expands beyond the notion of the artist’s studio: Everybody concerned with the artistic output and this includes both the creation of visions and translation into the art work itself, is, at least for a moment, part of AA. This seems to be another example of the maxim of Joseph Beuys, that everybody is an artist. In the image / after-image series, the diptychs which play with the positive and negative, reflections of painting become artistic form, especially in relation to pictorialness and the perception of the viewer. Negative images, like negatives in analogue photography, have been around for a considerable time and examples could also be seen in modern painting. The beholder's fascination is generated by the vibrant, brilliant colour and almost bizarre like quality. The deliberate renunciation of everyday appearance raises the issue of perception and the myriad influences that contribute to our "beholding" an object. It is as if there is a connection with the "inner library", our imaginary museum, in the form of a negative (in photography). Fascinating in itself, is that the negative, allows for poetic discourse or fantasy to infuse the negative replication of the original scene or painting. It is as if another world is contained within what was originally perceived to be the "real" world. This contributes to the fascination or excitement generated by the work of AA – the marriage of the negative images together with their positive counterparts, which either functions as a diptych or as individual works. When seen as a diptych however, there is an inherent dialogue that is generated and this in itself is important or central to the work of AA. The intended oscillation seen in comparative vision makes the beholder understand and experience the paintings, which, sometimes, via their motifs, reinforce insight into perception and its process, also when the motif is a quote from art history. "All the world’s a stage" (Shakespeare, As You Like It, Jacques’s monologue) is the background of the paintings showing a stage. They do not, as it were, constitute stage painting, although they may contain images of stage paintings. The situations presented are more absurd than the ones we know from Beckett or Ionesco, yet we experience them as reality. However Butour perception of reality is the image and our imagination that helps interpret the above. Meta-levels arise, a multi-dimensional expansion of the field of experience: From negative to positive, to comparison, to historical context and the influence of these on each other. The possibility of linking everything to everything else, demands an organising vision, to combine the artistic interpretation of the world contained in the paintings with an application of one’s own – to become, so to say, a part of AA.
Further information can be obtained from Galerie Caprice Horn All images are courtesy of Galerie Caprice Horn
