Kurzurlaub

KLASSE VOIGT ZU GAST [HOCHSCHULE FÜR BILDENDE KÜNSTE HAMBURG]

CHIAU SYUAN CHAI, KYLE EGRET, ANNIKA GRABOLD, BLANKA GYORI, SANJA HENNING, PAULA HOFFMANN, MAX KAPSNER, PHILINE MAYR, OLGA MOS, XINTONG SUN, BRYNJULFUR THORSTEINSSON

Exhibition duration
10. June – 20. July 2023

A light breeze blows through the academy. We immediately associate summer with vacation. But what does vacation actually mean for artists who do not take time off from their profession, but are always and everywhere stuck in their role? Answers to this question can be found in the works of the Voigt class, whose exhibition entitled Kurzurlaub opens up various points of reference on this theme.

For some, it means dedicating oneself to the landscape, putting it into the picture in one's own way, creating a very personal place of retreat. For others, to deal with the urban, to track down and transform architectural structures. Or: in what is probably their most elementary artistic form - to combine the images and impressions of the world with the subjective gaze, to indulge in color and structures, and to find ever new translations for the image of our reality. The exhibition invites to explore the area of contemporary art by compiling different works.  

Eva Schuster

Among the themes of home, house, and apartment, Chiau Syuan Chai searches for an image that evokes strong emotional memories. She uses conventional sculptural media to create two-dimensional works, creating areas where painting and sculpture coexist or are compatible. Through her artistic means, she breaks through the conventional perspective of the painting installation. She transforms large-scale wood paintings into building components, creating an abstract representation of the daydream of home.

As an approach and working method, Kyle Egret uses the representation of improvisation and structure of music in art. Recalling everyday images plays an important role in the process of creating his reduced figurative works, resembling the recall of internalized musical pieces. He uses a variety of materials including paper, acrylic, and canvas to subtly explore shapes, lines, and textures. His works have a rhythmic quality, similar to music, and are often created by chance and unexpected ideas. Nevertheless, they are based on a clear concept and demonstrate how limited means can create a variety of shapes and textures and create a specific mood.

The works of Blanka Gyori are like collages cut out from colored papers: Surfaces separated by strict lines. As a starting point she uses spontaneous, very simple drawings, and many sketches, both manual and digital. When she starts painting, the drawing and the outlines of the shapes are fixed. While painting, she focuses on the colors, cuts, movements. They are paused, frozen, as if a moment is captured in a dynamic process. They playfully speak about violence and convey hopelessness with the use of humor. Absurdity reveals itself as we approach the essence of things.

Within the framework of her artistic practice, Sanja Henning deals with the subtle expressions of the human body in the context of manifested biographical traces as well as acute phenomena. Her latest works are dedicated to the phase of physical change. Be it puberty, aging, or pregnancy, when it is unclear what is coming and what is staying, anchoring oneself in the now is the most reliable hold to be had. While thinking can hardly contribute to an effective coping with the partial identity upheaval in times of such uncertainty, it is above all a necessary surrender and the feeling accompanying the process that allows one to grow with and into the change. Inner perception bears witness to the change in digestible morsels; painting functions as a translation into the new form.

The balcony series by Paula Hoffmann is about the supposedly extended private space lying on the building envelope. Only with the help of visual barriers balcony screens, sunshades, windbreaks create a protective space. They are like caves from childhood, where a blanket and two chairs become the safest room on earth. A place to dream, to feel safe. That's what the balcony feels like. A vacation spot of everyday life, but from prying ears, from neighbors peeking around the corner, from passers-by lurking from below, there is only a small piece of intimacy.

The paintings of Max Kapsner are about light and the colorfulness of the world. He is particularly interested in the individual - biographically, spatially and temporally unique - colors that accompany and make up a life. His works are painted from just such colors. They come from places and people of his environment and are linked to memories and emotional content. The intense colors of the paintings shown in the exhibition all originate in Hamburg: from the summer evening sky, to the light playing on the waters of the Elbe, to the evening sun glinting gold in the windows of the city.

The central demand on the painting process is to create visually precise associations. Philine Mayr assembles and structures opposites into consistent compositions that ultimately form an inseparable organism. The individual aspects seem to flow into each other without ever giving up their independence. Alongside works that emphasize playful or combative interaction, others foreground isolation and autonomy.

Landscapes span the canvases of artist Olga Mos; her painting can be read as a journey. The works do not show a mimetic imitation of nature, but resemble a projection screen, allowing immersion in a sense of the environment. The works are intended to relate man and the world, to point to the constructed meaning and value of landscapes. They give reason to question those boundaries that are drawn by our own perception, to position ourselves and to let constructed opposites blur. In doing so, the works are in fluid motion. The deliberately set distance between the pictures refers specifically to the fact that each work stands for itself despite the interplay and at the same time symbolizes the process of creation: the pictures are - similar to the landscape - in constant becoming. Thus, a landscape of perception - a history of development - can be discovered in the individual as well as in the whole.

In her paintings, Xintong Sun explores the interplay between spirituality and the material world by capturing the essence of the human experience. Through abstract forms and subtle surface traces, impulses and profound insights emerge. The Knife in the clear water series explores the dynamics of hiding and showing during the pandemic. Like a protruding knife in clear water, it reflects the impossibility of true concealment and our constant connection to the world. Encouraging viewers to discover their own perspectives and emotions, she captures the multi-layered nature of the human condition in a compelling way.

Sitting still can be very powerful. You can spend a lot of time: breaking down, dissecting yourself, and trying to find the limits of your imagination. Eventually you will get bored, no matter how much you distract yourself. Your mind will catch up. Find you. And demand your attention. If you've spent too long distracting yourself, leaving no room for what's to come, your mind will hit you. Really. Hard as hell. Facing it would be healthy. Unless, of course, you create a maze. A maze so big that it spans planets, moons, cities, an entire universe and its inhabitants. Then you can remain inaccessible for a long time. That's what I did. After he got lost, when his mind caught up with him and forced him to retrace his many steps as he dealt with the issues that became clear to him on the way back. Brynjulfur Thorsteinsson is now trying to navigate through his universal labyrinth by writing a comic book. Mother is his latest realized work from his introspective, yet very real universe. An attempt to create a continuous form of art, highlighting elements from his story that are louder than his universe can contain. To understand our universe through his own.