We are very happy to see our colleague Uwe Wittwer taking part in the mayor "Watercolour" exhibition currently taking place at Tate Britain in London.
Uwe Wittwer also has a solo show running in parallel to the Tate exhibition. It is at Haunch of Venison Gallery in Burlington Gardens, London. You can see some installation shots here
Yesterday was the opening of the first show by Uwe Wittwer at the new Zurich gallery Lullin + Ferrari. It was the opening weekend for several galleries in that area of Zurich and it was a busy but also relaxed night, with a lot of interesting and interested people. Installation shots of the exhibition can be found here.
The show titled "The Unknown Photographer" runs until October 23rd.
The exhibition at Lullin + Ferrari holds the character of a concentrated intimate play, which focus on the different ways of seeing. The lifesize painted, unknown photographer is the thematic leitmotiv of the exhibition: in a clearance he points his camera towards the public. He is completely absorbed in his occupation and requires from the public the same attention towards the paintings in the show he lends to the subject in front of his camera.
In the first room the large format painting Rotation (Diptychon) (2010) welcomes the visitors. In this image Wittwer positions a rollercoaster in a fun fair stupendously into the picture. The wagon of the rollercoaster itself can't be seen in the diptych, but its chattering resonates in the wooden construction and the noise of the fun fair surges up the construction. Beside the loud Rotation Wittwer places a contained Wall Piece (2010); on a black wall piece a large and old photography is painted, showing three attentive posing children.
In the middle room of the gallery hang the paintings Riders and Flurry (2010) in which Wittwer refer to previous groups of works. In the painting Riders a merry-go-round is depicted, turning in circles from the left to the right. Behind the boy in the left part of the painting a black drapery is raised, clearing the view onto a sunny landscape. On the right side of the image, menacing and darker hues predominate. The wooden horses suddenly allude to the horses in the battle paintings of the Florentine Renaissance painter Paolo Uccello, Wittwer had appropriated in previous, large works on paper. The painting Flurry inspires through the parallel order of the picture ground, through the outline of people shown in the snow and through its flush of colours. In the foreground of the painting sledges are visible, reminding of Wittwer's snow pieces from East Prussia. (from the gallery's press release)
Berlin has a vibrant new gallery quarter, just behind the Hambuger Bahnhof – Berlin's Museum für Gegenwart. The complex spanning Heidestrasse 41-52 was discovered three years ago by former Zurich based gallery owner Jürg Judin, who set up the generous Haunch of Venison Berlin enterprise on Heidestrasse and now runs the Nolan Judin Gallery next door. An impressive number of interesting galleries have moved in to the old factories and workshops, transforming the area in remarkably short time.
The general opening for the first shows of the year on January 9th attracted large crowds, scurrying back and forth between venues in a hurry to escape the freezing cold of the Berlin winter. The big attraction was surely the superb Bill Viola exhibition in the huge Haunch of Venison space. I had always been rather sceptical of Bill Viola's work - but this one here really won me over through sheer beauty, depth, subtle humour and stupendous technical skill.
As grand as this Viola show is, I want to focus on an exhibition by a lesser-known artist at the Nolan Judin Gallery, just across the yard from Haunch of Venison. The artist is my colleague Uwe Wittwer and the show is titled "Verwehung" (drift).
Wittwer's work on show is based on photographs from Eastern Prussia, dating from around 1935 - 1945. The images depict the seemingly idyllic life of members of the local bourgeoisie – mostly Nazis – up to the Russian invasion.
The focus of Wittwer's Watercolours and Inkjetprints is on everyday subjects: children sledging, hunt scenes, a boat on the river, a merry-go-round... Only now and then there's a glimpse of a Nazi uniform or a scorched building. The seemingly banal subjects do not lessen the darkness radiating from the pictures; even without background knowledge, there is a general feeling of unease coming from the works. Wittwer has truly sussed the art of making beautiful pictures simmer with evil.
It is not all darkness though in Wittwer's world. There's an almost humorous thread, which – albeit its traceable connection to the subject of the show – strengthens the autonomy of the single image, easing it away from too much history and politics. Take the figurines for example, the porcelain statues generally admired by the burgeoisie and despised by those with opposing lifestyles: In one large-scale watercolour, we see two figurines – man and woman – engaged in a teasing dance at a masked ball. Wittwer portrays the pair in a way that makes them seem engaged in a lethal struggle, where the woman's fan becomes a bludgeon with which she is about to batter the man after ripping off his mask. This subtle satirical aspect returns in a number of works throughout the show, see for example the boy missing from the group of boys playing the harmonica in the entrance, – you will find him in the last room, playing his instrument between a dead stag and a rocking horse.
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Uwe Wittwer, «Figurine», 2008, Watercolour, 179 x 152 cm |
The show is intriguingly complex, because its subject touches on a burning issue (particularly in Germany) from recent history, yet – with the risk of this becoming a catchphrase for Uwe Wittwer – stronger than ever before in Wittwer's work, this show is about images, – about what we make of them, how images influence each other and how they fight for a place in our memory.
In this show, even pictures that are not obviously referential to works by other artists, begin to shove their way through our minds, until they find a spot next to a better-known picture. It is so, that your average woman walking down the steps in that Eastern Prussian forest ("Grosse Waldtreppe") demands to be seen next to Richter's and Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase", or the man steering his boat ("Boot negativ") through a river near Königsberg (Kalingrad), might as well be steering towards Böcklin's "Isle of the Dead".
Uwe Wittwer, "Boot negativ", 2008, Inkjet, 150 x 229 cm
From my own reaction as well as from numerous discussions overheard between visitors, it can be said that this exhibition, which at first seemed so cool and tidy, really strikes a nerve with a lot of people. This may be what one should expect from any exhibition, yet I find it remarkable, how strong the reactions were and how thorough the work was debated on the spot.
The exhibition is accompanied by a limited edition of 500 books, 33 of which come with an Inkjet print. The English translation of Heinz Stahlhut's text is available for download from uwewittwer.com
See photos of the entire exhibition here. All photos by Kevin Mueller, except "Heidestrasse buildings by night" by Sarah Huber.
The Uwe Wittwer show ended on February 14th. The upcoming exhibition at Nolan Judin Berlin is "George Grosz - The Years in America, 1933 - 1958" February 28th - April 25th. Bill Viola at Haunch of Venison Berlin runs until February 21st, followed by Adam Pendleton from February 28th.
The Heidestrasse Galleries:
AA Galleries, Bereznitsky, Edition Block, Fruehsorge, Hamish Morrison Galerie, Haunch of Venison, Infernoesque, Nolan Judin Berlin, Oswald, Plan B, Schink Schauraum, Galerie Schuster, Tanas, Tape, Zern.
For more information visit the following websites:
heidestrasse.com | nolan-judin.com | haunchofvenison.com | uwewittwer.com
Impressions of Uwe Wittwer's recent show at the Kunstzeughaus in Rapperswil-Jona (near Zurich), Switzerland. Photos by Brigitt Lattmann.
Monsoon I
Monsoon I (detail)
Monsoon II & III
Monsoon II
Monsoon III
Front left: «Still Life negative after Heda», 2002, Watercolour, 150 x 180 cm
«Queen» Series after Holbein 1991 - 94
From left to right: Wall Piece after Poussin, 2008, Aquarell, 180 x 150 cm; «Bacchanal after Poussin, negative, diptych», 2008, Aquarell, 180 x 150 cm
Far end: «Portrait negative», 2008, Ink Jet, 180 x 150 cm ; front right: «Portrait», 2008, Ink Jet, 150 x 150 cm
Front: «House negative», 2008, Ink Jet, 149.8 x 199.6 cm; far end: «Interior negative», 2007, Ink Jet, 180 x 150 cm
Congratulations to our dear friend and colleague Uwe Wittwer for landing a spot on the top 50 "most important Swiss artists" list published in today's Bilanz magazine.
Uwe Wittwer is represented by Haunch of Venison Zurich, Cohan and Leslie New York and Nolan Judin Berlin.
Uwe Wittwer: «Shepherds after Poussin», 2007, Watercolour, 179.5 x 304.5 cm
April 4 - May 3, 2008
The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 to 6pm
www.cohanandleslie.com
138 Tenth Avenue
New York, New York 10011
«... the US debut exhibition of Swiss artist Uwe Wittwer, including large scale watercolors, paintings and unique inkjet prints.
While the works are figurative, Wittwer is more accurately a painter of images. His source material is chosen from the overwhelming sea of digital representations - images of images - found on the internet. Wittwer’s dominant interests are old master paintings and vernacular photographs of families and soldiers.
The show is centered on two massive watercolors based on 17th Century paintings by Nicolas Poussin. Their size and strength upend the typical prejudice towards watercolors as small and delicate. Across the gallery a group of 5 medium sized watercolors are based on photographs from family albums dating from the 1940s-60s, which suggest subtle narratives when seen as a whole.
The back gallery will feature large scale, black and white inkjet prints based on photographs by American soldiers during the Vietnam War. Although entirely digital from beginning to end they are undeniably painterly, and rely on formal conventions similar to those of the watercolors. Usually rendered in negative, the watercolors and inkjet prints share a sinister sense of confronting memories or a history that may be difficult to face.
Wittwer denies the conventional hierarchy of media in favor of his engagement with images. Similarly, through the filter of the internet a painting by Poussin enjoys no hierarchy over an anonymous snapshot. The compositions found in a soldier’s photograph are as valid as the classical structure of the Old Masters. Both are representations of history with blurred, and possibly irrelevant, distinctions between ‘reality’ and fabrication.
Uwe Wittwer was born in 1954 and is based in Zurich. His work has recently been the focus of solo exhibitions and publications by Haunch of Venison Zurich, the Ludwigforum Aachen, and the Kunstmuseum Solothurn.»
Uwe Wittwer's new large scale watercolour paintings and new oil paintings are on show at the Zurich Gallery of Haunch of Venison. The show comprises new work created over the period of one year, - to a large extent at the Landys & Gyr Studio in East London, where he spent six month on a scholarship.
The precise show is a grand display of Wittwer's masterful painting skills. It offers a rare overview of the sometimes eerie depth of the subject matter behind the often dazzling beauty of his art. Wittwer's habit of displaying a fascist interior alongside a seemingly innocent Still Life, opens a previously hidden, malevolent side to the splendour of the opulent flower painting. Everything is beautiful, nothing is innocent. This is Wittwer's best show to date, - it clearly benefits from the generous space the Haunch of Venison Gallery offers, giving the large scale paintings the space they demand.
The show is accompanied by a book called «Uwe Wittwer, Hail and Snow, watercolours». With a thorough text on Wittwer's work by Sarah Kent.
Uwe Wittwer at Haunch of Venison Gallery, Lessingstrasse 5, 8002 Zurich, Switzerland,
August 26th - September 29th.
Zurich based, CUE affiliated artist Uwe Wittwer now has his own website online. Uwe Wittwer is a founding member of the CUE society with several videos and books published by the CUE publishing section «Édition Idéal».
