Materialistic desires become evident in smooth and shiny paintings: Achim Riethmann’s new works directly invoke associations with advertising and show cases. Only when approaching them they turn out to be delicate water colour drawings, covered with industrially coated and tinted glass panes. Organic waste, downtrodden and withered blossoms or a hung up down jacket are isolated and taken out of their natural context. They are surrounded by a dark, reflecting surface that seems to be ambivalent in terms of content: On the one hand neither determined nor imaginary sphere, it integrates on the other hand the present and the observers reflected in it into the picture.
As an artist that constantly addresses socio-political issues, Riethmann now concentrates on pecific items, on the traces of the individual and his/her cravings. He directs the attention on himself, becoming very personal: The artist arranges private items that are apparently in different stages of their functionality next to each other in centred compositions, not in a fragmented way like in former works. Without explicitly positioning himself against certain consumption patterns or against materialistic dependence, the pictures rather evoke a strange kind of emotional or even existential attachment to the items and brands. Or, in the case of the organic waste, hint at the lack of any kind of relation.

The soft tones of the water colours and their delicate image mode are proof of Riethmann’s skills in handling the medium. Combined with the glass panes, a prefabricated, commonly used window glass with UV protection, the paintings gain a noticeable multimedia element. The reflection and the industrial appearance of the surface aesthetics of the works only emerge after the coating, during a twofold and therefore time-consuming work process. Here, not just an exceptional approach of an artist to his works manifests itself, who otherwise appreciates water colour drawings precisely for their immediacy. Moreover, the meticulous painting of the glass panes almost detracts from the fact that they are handmade. In the light of the artist addressing the subject of the ephemeral nature of objects, this virtually seems to be a contradiction if not a deliberately accentuated anachronism. It remains an open question whether Riethmann demonstrates a critical attitude here or if this is even a kind of formal actionism. One can merely note a melancholic pausing in front of the objects of everyday life that are perceived by people, at least temporarily, as an enhancement of themselves.

Frederieke Czaja

" ... at the heart of his work is the identification of the individual in a Westernized, increasingly global society and the simultaneous longings and fantasies of the individual himself."

Leiko Ikemura, Professorin an der Universität der Künste, Berlin
 

"With a special pleasure ... the Berlin artist creates ab- and illusory images of found realities of our present and intertwines them in series as always sensitively treated set pieces of mental world journeys. Using a wide variety of artistic techniques, he creates thought models that are as capable of presenting as they are of triggering a broad spectrum of thematic chains of associations."

Martin Hartung, Kunsttheoretiker 

 "... White surfaces conspicuously dominate the visual language of the individual motifs, creating a spectacular pictorial architecture. The erasure of given space emphasizes the body language, renews the context of real possible situations and opens a resonance space for illusions. Foreground and background, as well as the relationship between space and surface, transform into an ambivalent spatial structure through the position of the creatures or objects. Left blank suggests sober objectivity, supported by the reduced choice of pictorial motifs."

Hans Tepe, Galerist
 

"Global, social and/or private exceptional situations form the thematic starting point. These can be natural disasters, accidents but also armed conflicts. I use press images, images from the Internet or my own photos, from which I acquire certain sections and use them as a template for my painting. In doing so, I make sure that the detail not only represents a concrete situation, but something general. With human figures, for example, I am usually concerned with the role that this figure fulfills in a crisis situation. The fragments used, in contrast to pictorial elements not depicted, create a field of tension for thematic as well as spatial interpretations, both in terms of content and form.Exceptional situations, in their dramatic nature, often also represent a change, from one state to another. This change, this moment of emergence from something old fascinates me. In my works, this tension between dissolving, disappearing and creating plays the central role, both in the choice of my motifs, as well as in the way of representation."

Achim Riethmann