Past exhibitions

We take pleasure in announcing the second exhibition of works by Axel Geis at Galerie Jan Wentrup, which will open on September 30, 2006. On this occasion, the first catalog about the artist will be published.

Since his first exhibition at the end of 2004, Geis has been able to establish himself successfully, and his paintings have attracted considerable art-critical attention. His works are today not only in important international private collections, but also in the public collections of the Saarland Museum in Saarbrücken and the Kunsthalle Mannheim. Furthermore, until October 22, the Kunsthalle Mannheim is also hosting a special exhibition of Geis’ works as part of the show Full House—Gesichter einer Sammlung.

In November, paintings by Geis will be on view at Fondazione Mudime in Milano. In his oil paintings, Axel Geis (born 1970) addresses the human figure. In undefined or only sparingly equipped visual spaces, these figures have a presence that is difficult to determine. His paintings are characterized by an atmosphere somewhere between familiar and strange. The portraits of individual people or, recently, also groups of people, seem strangely removed or, when they look directly at the beholder, focused only on themselves.
In the catalog, the Berlin art historian Sven Beckstette writes: „Obviously, for Geis the human figure is at the centre of his work. But the point for him is not copying a model. The pictures are always painted on the basis of reproductions. Apart from family photographs or photographs staged by himself, it is also film stills that can serve as a point of departure for the paintings. A systematic procedure behind the selection of what is to be painted cannot be assumed. Geis, for example, does not search through a filmic canon or specific genres, rather, his subjects are based on accidental finds, without any attention to their artistic or film historical value. [...]
So even if Geis takes film images as points of departure for some of his paintings, he nonetheless does not belong to those artists who since the 1970s have been working on topics related to the cinema, its aesthetics and mechanisms. Star cult, optics, production methods, and the iconography of film do not interest him, that much is certain. The images of the cinema offer the immediate occasion for the painting, but are not a reason for an intense engagement with the cinema itself. If we look more closely at Geis’ treatment of his models, regardless of whether they come from films or photographs, then it becomes clear that through the transfer into painting a process of abstraction takes place in which the sources are disguised.“

The art of Gregor Hildebrandt (born 1974) can best be described by the concept of
conceptual image creation, although this too opens up a conceptual pigeonhole
in which the artist is difficult to categorize.

Since 1999, Gregor Hildebrandt has been working with cassette tape and since 2003 with
video tape as his preferred material. In closely adjacent strips, canvases are
completely or partially covered, paper works and sculptures are created, or even
entire house walls and rooms are draped. The coated surface of the tapes
creates a reflection of light and the surrounding space, which never makes the image
appear the same. The austerity of Hildebrandt's works only seemingly evokes
associations with formal reductions known since the 1960s. The minimal in Hildebrandt's work never appears value-free, but is instead poetically charged. In the painting "The Carny N.C. (San Michele)" (274 x 447 cm, 2004), for example, the silhouette of the cemetery island San Michele of Venice is outlined in the lower third. While in this area the raw canvas is visible and the island with surrounding water is imagined, Hildebrandt has covered the upper part of the sky completely with cassette tape. The tape here, as always in the works of Gregor Hildebrandt, is not merely a material, but also a carrier of meaning insofar as the tapes are always carriers of music. In this case, it is the song "The Carny" by the Australian singer Nick Cave. The immateriality of the music intertwines in its meaning with the subject of the canvas painting.
The conceptual in Hildebrandt's work is evident precisely in this questioning of visibility. The idea takes the place of concrete realization, of pure illustration.

The viewer is no longer fixed on mere perception, but finds themselves challenged to reflect on the open form according to their own ideas. This individual appropriation in Hildebrandt's work, however, never leads to a dissolution of the materiality of the work, but ties it back to the form of the panel painting.

Exhibitions

20 Years – An Anniversary Show

Thomas Wachholz – Tempo Primo

Nevin Aladağ – Vibrating Images

Jan-Ole Schiemann – Knirsch

Sophie von Hellermann – Monumental

Hicham Berrada – Remains

Marion Verboom – Megaron

Phoebe Boswell – Liminal Beach

Axel Geis – Kult und Amore

Britta Thie – Scene

John McAllister – sometimes symphony clatter calm

Jenny Brosinski – As Long as I Get Somewhere

Karl Haendel – Praise Berlin

Sophie von Hellermann – Von kommenden Dingen

Mary Ramsden – For newness of the night

Gerold Miller

Gregor Hildebrandt – Ein Wimpernschlag und hinter uns die Stunden

David Renggli & Thomas Wachholz – Let's Get Lit

Nevin Aladag – Body Instruments

Axel Geis – Grace, beauty, and seduction (with many modern details)

Natalie Ball – Deer Woman gets enrolled on October 30, 2013

Abstrakt

Miriam Böhm – e e e B n n N n

Olaf Metzel – Berliner Kindheit

John McAllister – adrift gleaming serenest rustling air

Jan-Ole Schiemann – Mantis Mannequins

David Renggli – SUV Paintings

Zoom In Zoom Out

Gregor Hildebrandt – Fliegen weit vom Ufer fort

Hicham Berrada – Enclosed Natures

Thomas Gründfeld – jene

Sophie von Hellermann – Swirls and Circles

Florian Meisenberg & David Renggli

Olaf Metzel

Karl Haendel – Doppelgänger

Gregor Hildebrandt – Ein Zimmer im Raum

Mariechen Danz – Ore Oral Orientation

Nevin Aladag – Muster

PAPIER.SALON

David Renggli – Mullholland Melody

Louisa Clement – Des Tänzers Weg der Seele

L’été plus vaste que l'empire

Olaf Metzel – Plattenbau

John McAllister – Chorus Clamors Sultry

Florian Meisenberg – Um, nice guy, good hospitality, but.. y'know (...)

Peles Empire – 1 Eye 2 Eyes

Karl Haendel – Unwinding Unboxing, Unbending Uncocking

Hicham Berrada – Caverne

Why we expect more from technology and less from each other

Nevin Aladag – Traces

Gregor Hildebrandt – Auf Wasser schlafend rauscht das Meer

Miriam Böhm – ON AT

Accrochage

Peles Empire – DUO

Hicham Berrada & Felix Kiessling – Equilibres / Ausgleich

Timm Ulrichs – 8 ½ Meisterwerke

Axel Geis – Chandelier

Florian Meisenberg – Somewhere sideways, down, at an angle, but very close

Olaf Metzel – Gelbes Mauerstück

Zanele Muholi's selected "Faces & Phases" and "Beulahs"

David Renggli – Two Melons and 1 Banana

Gregor Hildebrandt – In Jade stände eine Stadt

Wawrzyniec Tokarski – In Regress

Nevin Aladag – Session

Timm Ulrichs

David Renggli – Drums, please!

Florian Meisenberg – MAGIC MOMENTS of homeopathy vol 2 (the drama of creative man)

Matthew Hale – The Welcome Stranger

Snapshots of a Generation

Nevin Aladag – Pattern Matching

Gregor Hildebrandt – Für kommende Morgen

Nevin Aladag – Rallye

Miriam Böhm – Display

Axel Geis – L'infinito

Wawrzyniec Tokarski – The Advantage of the Unfortunate

Timm Ulrichs – Den Blitz auf sich lenken

Matthew Hale – Wacht Schatz

Crosstown Traffic

Axel Geis – Die Wildgänse kommen