Galerie Michael Janssen in Berlin

We are pleased to present a group show with works by students of the Walter Dahn Klasse in June 2008.

Artists in the show:
Monika Aumann - Dragutin Banic - Bernadette Blendl & Lea Rochus - Carina Brandes - Walter Dahn - Nschotschi Haslinger - Toulu Hassani - Dagmar Hauth - Fränze Hoppe - Christof John - Paul Krüger - Christof Mascher - Ulrich Pester - Eva Schmidt - Malte Struck - Anna Skrollan Virnich

Monika Aumann (*1979) What is the individual’s spatial relationship to the world around him? Artistic example: Aumann has created a windowless room in a former tower bunker with the aim of helping visitors to blank out the oppressive, awkward building by which it is encircled. She has rounded off all the corners and painted a slightly abstract 360° panoramic scene on the wall featuring a forest and horses. Candles placed on chunks of clay create a campfire atmosphere in the rooms, and friends meet by the stump of a tree to relax and enjoy a picnic.

Dragutin Banic (*1979) Taking ethnic themes such as embroidery designs and traditional costumes, a preoccupation with naive painting among others as a starting point, the canvas serves as the medium for pastose layers of colour. The images are destroyed and reshaped again and again until they succeed or fail.

Lea Rochus‘ (*1983) work involves drawings and video creations, while Bernadette Blendl (*1979) concentrates on painting. Together, the pair creates ironic personal productions with Polaroid cameras and b/w photographs as the result of a documentary reconnaissance of Braunschweig. Individuals and space are altered via a range of techniques, not in the sense of a disguise, but more as an extension of the situation. The camera is used to capture the changes in the process.

Nschotschi Haslinger (*1982) “Imagining my shoes are a bit longer, and the ears too, that makes you look beautiful. The lipstick tastes of my mother.”

Toulu Hassani’s (*1984) filigree drawings and paintings in pencil, paint and oil are reduced, muted in colour and yet luminous. The main focus of the works constitutes small, crystalline shapes, which recall insects, and are sometimes surrounded by a thick layer of paint or the white of the paper.

Dagmar Hauth (*1976) combines, interlaces and interlinks geometrical shapes so densely in her sculptures that they are no longer able to separate. A shift in perspective makes the simplest of shapes seem extremely complex. The objects vary in size, with edge lengths ranging from eight centimetres to two metres, and are cast in wax, bronze or stainless steel, or constructed from cotton wool buds, potatoes or wood. Some of the objects, most of which are designed as lattice structures, can only be comprehended via touch.

Fränze Hoppe (*1985) “Everybody is alone. That’s why I just drift, you know.“
(Allie in Permanent Vacation, Jim Jarmusch 1980)

Christof John (*1984) is interested in the materiality of an image. His abstract works, which take the form of paint on wood or canvas, shift between image and object.

Paul Krüger’s (*1983) works combine discoveries and materials with wood, paints and various materials, in order to arrive at a reduced, abstract form of painting. This intuitive process is guided by the nature of the available material and is broadened via references to other artists, films, landscapes and graffiti.

In Christof Mascher’s (*1979) paintings, ethnic elements are fused with a utopian notion of architecture in the tradition of the Gläserne Kette (The Glass Chain), a chain letter created by an Expressionist group of architects which was initiated by Bruno Taut and Wenzel Hablik at the beginning of the 20th century. Dark, fantastical mountain landscapes are populated by crystalline arches, witches‘ cottages and grotesque figures, yet nevertheless appear profoundly inanimate. Christof Mascher’s first individual exhibition was held at the Michael Janssen Gallery Cologne in summer 2007.

Ulrich Pester (*1980) searches for the ingredients necessary to turn nature into culture, to return existing culture to
nature, or to disguise culture as nature once more. Raw ingredients are cooked, cooked products are digested, digested material passes back to nature, a nature which is now different, even foreign.
As Friedrich Wolfram Heubach once said: “Nature has become rather strange”.

Eva Schmidt’s (*1978) works are portraits, in which books, music and images from films or newspapers fuse with the artist’s self-portrait. They are created via searching, finding and the attempt to reproduce what has been found without artificial additions.

Malte Struck (*1981) Songs, which are more than the effect of their lyrics and melodies. Images which conceal more than is revealed by merely superficial observation. Precisely those things you can’t see otherwise. Conversations between people, pauses in sentences or simply moments ignored by all. These are usually minimal nuances which suffice to turn a context or impression completely on its head. A shrill tone can become a wonderful sound in the right situation or in another space. And a wonderful sound can become an unsettling question.

Anna Skrollan Virnich (*1984) “... things ain’t clear, they’re just transparent ...”
(„Rock-a-Boy-Blue“, Songs to Remember, Scritti Politti, 1982)