›Glanz & Gloria‹ 07/12/2019—02/03/2020

• Jirka Pfahl
• Lars Teichmann

Constance 07/12/2019 — 02/03/2020

Jirka Pfahl's patterns have a magical attraction for the viewer from the very first moment: they are simple, elegant, timeless. They are often monochrome papers, sometimes with colored carpet prints, which the artist transforms into sophisticated folds. His objects are refined by hand-made frames with museum glass, which makes it seem as if you can reach into the folds. The beauty of the paper reliefs reveals itself immediately: a pattern, a mountain landscape, a source of calm that has a three-dimensional effect in the room and is the ideal complement to Lars Teichmann's canvas works.
Each of his works exists only once – the analogue folds I to X each exist once in
monochrome black and monochrome white. Pfahl's folds are generated according to a mathematical-logical order. Based on the brute-force method, in which a
Encryption is tackled with sheer computing power. The artist thus begins a search that is both liberating and exhaustive, exploring the most diverse possibilities of his working method. By exploring the variants, he continually finds new creations in the fields of computer science, cryptology and game theory.
Jirka Pfahl's folds are made analogously - that is, by hand. With the help of a Java program (programmed by Nick de Hoog), the artist now examines the possible surfaces using algorithms.

Lars Teichmann creates large-format canvases that evoke a longing that the viewer does not immediately understand, but can physically feel. Like a magnet, one is drawn to familiar subjects that not only radiate monumental beauty, but also arouse nostalgic emotions. On closer inspection, one can give this attraction a name: the artist captures familiar motifs and collective memories of classicist portraits and French salon paintings of the 19th century on canvas, only to immediately alienate and update them. Forms are simplified, image constructions dissolved, and colors expressively changed.
Lars Teichmann questions our current reception habits and awakens memories and associations with his powerful compositions.
Reinvention of the subject by the artist, the viewer experiences a new discovery
conventional feelings on a new level of meaning. The portraits of the charismatic people depicted gain in importance, looking at them creates a spiritual and intellectual freedom, the power and dignity of the people portrayed can be sensed and their grace and charisma evoke new feelings.
Lars Teichmann reinterprets the great classical themes of portrait painting by moving to the border of abstraction, avoiding the superfluous and dispensing with details in favor of composition.
Teichmann's figures are familiar, but also strange. This alienation of long-familiar subjects is precisely what triggers a nostalgic longing in the viewer - the desire for the tried and tested and the longing for something new.