K
Bennet, Steve, “News to use: Artist uses newsprint as canvas,“ San Antonio Express-News, January 30, 2011
SAN ANTONIO
EXPRESS-NEWS
S.A. LIFE
AND
CULTURAS
News to use: Artist uses newsprint as canvas
BY STEVE BENNETT
[email protected]
A lot of the tension in Gabriel
Vormstein’s art arises from a preference for painting his meticulously executed subject matter, calling
on both the figurative and the abstract, on newsprint—a throwaway
medium.
“When I first saw Gabriel’s
work, I couldn’t understand why he
was making such beautiful paintings on such a crude surface,” Matthew Drutt, the former director of
Artpace, said recently.
For the past decade, Vormstein, a young Berlin-based artist,
has painted his poetic imagery—
black-and-white geometric forms,
clouds of color, floral and nature
motifs, female silhouettes that recall Gustav Klimt—on the broadsides of a daily newspaper. For the
record, he prefers to work on the
financial pages of the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung.
“I just like the organics of
the material, that it has a limited
lifespan,” he explains. “And it is
a material that has its own history,
like making a canvas out of reallife situations.”
For “The Teeth of the Wind and
the Sea,” an installation at Artpace
through May 1 in the upstairs Hudson (Show)Room, Drutt—curating
his final show before leaving the
organization Jan. 25—challenged
the artist to “blow the boundaries
Berlin artist Gabriel Vormstein paints plants and fruits in this detail from “The Teeth of
the Wind and the Sea,” his installation which has taken over Artpace.
apart.”
“I thought, ‘What if he took over
a space instead of working in the
prescribed space?’” Drutt said.
Vormstein, who has cited the
Arte Povera, a movement with
roots in Italy in the 1960s that prefers “poor” materials and a limited
aesthetic, as well as the surrealists and romantics such as Egon
Schiele as influences, responded
by basically going wild. He has
wallpapered the gallery space with
painted newspaper—the Zeitung,
but also Italian and Indian publications.
Entering the space is a bit dis-
Figures rise in this detail from Vormstein’s
Artpace exhibit, which offers a contrasting
look at man and nature.
orienting because one doesn’t
quite know where to look first. After a few moments of struggling to
take it all in—a great orange stain
spreads over one section, graffitied
blue ghostlike figures (which the
artist said are inspired by the work
of the dadaist French painter Francis Picabia) rise up opposite—a
viewer begins to notice small details: birds and butterflies, symbols
like hearts. And Vormstein can
draw and paint plants and fruits
with the precision of a seasoned
naturalist. The room takes on a
faintly melancholy vibe, and we
lose ourselves in the artistic atmosphere.
The title of the exhibition,
which also includes a side gallery
of strange and wonderful totemic
plaster and tree branch wall sculptures, comes from an epic song
by the experimental British band
93 Current. It’s a piece of repetitive apocalyptic folk (sample lyrics: “this is the atomic pain of the
world/the molecular tears/the final
crystalline structure of misery”)
that Vormstein says he “quite” admires.
“I wanted to fill the whole room
with one large painting contrasting nature and man,” he says, “like
an art book where different stories
are told throughout, but you come
away with one story at the end.”
Of course, that story’s telling is
steered by the viewer.
A L M I N E R E C H G A L L E RY
GABRIEL VORMSTEIN
CATCH AS CATCH CAN
01.04.11 — 07.05.11
Gabriel Vormstein’s material gestures – his effortless watercolour sketches on re-used
newsprint or the totemic objects made out of branches and found objects – appear
quite laconic and ephemeral. A rectangle made out of a few wooden branches seems
hardly more than a few pieces of wood and a length of tape, yet, with some art historical information added, becomes a surprising take on Minimalism and display. Similarly,
the carelessness of execution in the paintings seems slightly at odds with some of their
motifs and sources, with the rich detail and the luscious surfaces that we all remember
from the portraits by Egon Schiele or from flower still lifes. However, Vormstein’s paintings are about the experience of art, about looking at a surface and seeing something
other than just paint. They contain a memory of art, a youthful fascination with beauty
past, and translate that into a contemporary expression.
Vormstein draws and paints on sheets of newsprint, of mostly four newspaper doublespreads glued together. He sometimes primes these with emulsion paint but never
disavows their nature – and so the graphic structure of headlines and columns, images
and text becomes the sublayer of all his works. He then draws on these with pencil and
fills them with colour, sometimes adding further layers by collageing a background or
creating a form. The birds in The Storm and the body of The Hungry Caterpillar are torn
from previous, “failed” pieces, thus referencing the ‘masters’ and reanimating his own
ongoing involvement.
It is a long process of negotiation. Schiele plays a significant part in this, he is inspiration and at the same time the embodiment of art. Vormstein quotes his figures and uses
them as a marker, he refers to their historicity and to the theme of vanitas. In She’s not
dead, he outlines one of Schiele’s female figures in pencil, and then adds colour only to
what is not her skin, her hair, her dress and stockings, her lipstick and eyes, almost as
if she herself had become invisible – a faint memory of a woman who must have died
many years ago. The watercolours around her have mixed and bled, they dried in the
‘waves’ of the warped paper and bear hardly any resemblance to the carefully painted
original. Yet still, she is there and highly visible, and She’s not dead at all! In Catch
up, he again references a painting, this time by Francis Picabia, Catch as Catch Can
(1913), that provided the name for this exhibition. Already in the cubist original, Picabia
combined forms from wrestling and dance, and Vormstein is now realigning traces of
that fusion of cultural experiences into the multitude of divergent experiences we are
facing today.
Axel LAPP
CONTACT PRESSE : CAMILLE BLUMBERG - +33 1 45 83 71 90 / [email protected]
Green, Kate, “Critics’ Pick: San Antonio, Gabriel Vormstein,” Artforum, April 7, 2011, < http://www.artforum.
com/picks/section=us#picks27905>
San Antonio
Gabriel Vormstein
ARTPACE SAN ANTONIO
445 North Main Avenue
January 13 - May 1
Those familiar with Gabriel Vormstein’s paintings
and interest in the avant-garde will find it
appropriate that not all the elements in his first
solo museum exhibition come together flawlessly.
The artist is known for using watercolors, spray
View of “The Teeth of the Wind and the Sea,” 2011.
paint, and everyday materials to redraw figures
and shapes from art history—the angular women
of Viennese Expressionism, the geometric forms of Minimalism—on newspapers. Today’s news is partially
obscured by Vormstein’s re-creations; past and present coexist uneasily. This exhibition includes one of his
newsprint paintings (The Winter, 2010) and some terrific new sculptures (a plaster “piece of pie” is embedded
with a banana chip), but the main attraction is in the larger gallery. Here, for the first time, Vormstein
has papered a room floor-to-ceiling with newspaper paintings. Though the experiment in scale is not fully
resolved, the concurrence of disparate moments does raise compelling questions about how we give shape to
history.
The show and main installation have the same hefty title: “The Teeth of the Wind and the Sea.” This evokes
might and flux, and both are at play here. Vormstein has covered every inch of wall space by gluing together
sections of newspaper paintings made on the ground (as evinced by footprints). In the most engaging areas, images—a woman in the style of Egon Schiele, a bunch of van Gogh–like sunflowers—are only partially
fleshed out. Art history is coming apart as it comes together.
But where in Vormstein’s painting-sized works newspaper provides a provocative noncanvas support for this
slippage, at mural scale the material seems less justified. Why not make the ghostly images directly on the
wall? Perhaps in Vormstein’s next experiment he will find an even more daring way to explore how we enact
and might even anticipate history in the present.
— Kate Green
JAN 13 > MAY 1, 2011
HSR 11.1
HUDSON (SHOW)ROOM
GABRIEL
VORMSTEIN
The Teeth of the
Wind and the Sea
san antonio
artpace
GABRIEL VORMSTEIN
The Teeth of the Wind and the Sea
ABOUT THE ARTIST
German artist Gabriel Vormstein utilizes themes of failure and death in his paintings and sculptural
works as catalysts for inquiry and innovation in the arts. Inspired by the work of Egon Schiele, he reexamines the romantic, emotionally charged gestures found in early Modernist painting. He frequently
works on raw and primed newspaper as his canvas, selecting and redrawing figures from art history
and fashion magazines and offsetting them with abstract imagery and collage. His choice of organic,
low-cost materials, such as newspaper, not only recalls the type of media used in the Arte Povera
movement from the late 1960s, but suggests a connection between the degrading effects of age that
newsprint and the body share.
Vormstein was the recipient of the Graduiertenstipendium des Landes Baden-Württemberg Award in
2002 and is nominated for the 2009/2010 Sovereign European Art Prize. His work has been included
in museum exhibitions in Europe, such as Seltsam, so lose im Raum, Kulturstiftung Schloss Agathenburg, Germany (2010); Made in Germany, Kestner Gesellschaft, Sprengel Museum Hannover, Kunstverein Hannover, Germany (2007); and Of Mice and Men: 4th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art,
curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni, and Ali Subotnick, Germany (2006). This will be his
first solo museum show in the world and his first American museum project.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
For his exhibition at Artpace, The Teeth of the Wind and the Sea, Vormstein has filled the walls of the
Hudson (Show)Room with paintings, drawings, and collages—primarily on gessoed newspaper—featuring fragments of images from myriad sources. Additionally he has created a discrete catacomb or
side chapel filled with relic-like plaster constructions and paintings that refer to the ephemeral nature
of existence. It is the largest piece the artist has made in his career, dramatically shifting the scale
from more intimate portrait-like works to a painting that completely encompasses its environment and
submerges its viewers into the installation.
Upon entering the exhibition space, the viewer is presented with an expansive 3600 wall painting
reminiscent of a fresco or mural on various newspapers joined together with wood glue. Without an
apparent beginning or end, one can move through the installation from any point in the room. Large
colored and gessoed masses containing paintings and drawings of female figures—drawn from the
works of Egon Schiele and Francis Picabia—as well as flora and fauna culled from various art historical sources anchor each of the walls, providing for a visual rhythm of whites, pinks, oranges, blues,
and greens. Relating to the tradition of still life or memento mori, these organic elements and materials are meant to express the transitory nature of all living things.
Working counter-clockwise from the entrance, the right part of the wall contains overlapping broadsheets of various colors with a white cloud of gesso that rises above eye level. Near the base of the
wall lies a fragment of a female figure drawn in graphite with eyes closed and hand resting on forehead. Above and to the left of this figure is a small bowl of fruit lightly painted in warm yellows
and cool greens. Directly above the fruit is a serpentine swirl of grey paint and abstracted symbols
that resemble cluster of grapes and the profile of a skateboard; near the base of this section is
a downturned sunflower and muddled red poppies. This section and many others contain ripped
pieces of previous works that the artist claims were failures, but has resurrected through their
piecemeal incorporation in this installation.
The center of the right wall section is
dominated by a radiant block of orange color with a thin circle approximately 10 feet in diameter, again with
recycled fragments of previous works
bookending the centerpiece. On the
left of the sun-like section another
cloudy wash of gesso fills the space,
this time with a delicate line drawing
of a garden of flowers. High above are
large blue swirls that appear to shower
rain in the form of blue paint down on
the floral arrangement.
Continuing to the left on the back wall,
another wash of gesso—a center section nearly 10 feet square—holds grey
footprints that diverge to the top and
bottom of the work, evidence of the
artist’s process of working these large
sections of newspaper on the floor
of his studio. On the right, abstract
geometric designs come in and out
of focus; on the left, a Schiele-esque
painted figure hovers above eye level.
Featured on the adjacent wall to the
left are Vormstein’s signature cubic
forms rising from floor to ceiling along
with translucent square forms of grey,
Gabriel Vormstein, The Winter, 2010. Photo courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan
blue, green, tangerine, and rose. AnGallery, New York
choring the center of this wall are large
lavender biomorphic forms and a black cat that appear to cast shadows across the quilted newspaper base. Throughout this section are fragments of still lifes, portraits, and birds. Completing the
panorama, the fourth wall features a colorful painting of sunflowers resting in what appears to be
a window into a brighter world with a ghost-like figure floating above it and blue footprints near its
base.
Vormstein’s selection of the words teeth, wind, and sea in his title are key because they help reinforce the idea of entropy and time that permeates much of this exhibition. These natural elements
break down surfaces creating new forms from old ones. Indeed, in viewing this exhibition, viewers
cannot help but to lose themselves “in the landscape of the material and story.”
—Alexander Freeman, Education Curator
Lapp, Axel and Wilhelm Werthern, “Berlin,” Art Review, May 2011, p. 98-102
Berlin
—
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY:
AXEL LAPP AND
WILHELM WERTHERN
Berlin is unquestionably an artists’ city. Thousands of them have moved here over the last couple of years from all
parts of the world. Some intend to stay permanently, others remain for shorter periods of time, but as a whole
they have become a considerable economic force. Materials, equipment, photographic services. Framing, fabrication, shipping—all of these are needed and contribute to the city’s economy, even before a single piece is sold.
Many artists produce work on a small scale, on shoestring budgets; others employ a small army of assistants. Ai
Weiwei, for instance, has just bought a new studio in Berlin that stretches for 4,800sq m—larger than Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall.
Why Berlin? Not all of these artists have been following the market (the local art market was never very strong
anyway); more likely, the market has been following them. Even if all of Berlin’s galleries henceforth only showed
artists living in the city, not all of them could be represented, much less earn their living here. Of course, some
of the reasons why people have been moving to Berlin are economic: rents are considerably lower in most other
capitals, and there is still a good amount of space centrally available: Berlin is also quite easy to get to. But even
these attractions apply to a few other cities. The nightlife—all those bars and clubs—is also a draw.
Perhaps all these elements work together. Price, availability, safety, fun! Or perhaps the biggest factor is the
quality of life and the lifestyle: the slow pace, the relaxed attitude, the openness. Indeed, many of the artists who
live in Berlin work elsewhere—realising projects or teaching—and spend only their ‘free’ time in the city, time
to relax and to think.
Two upcoming events take advantage of and point to further growth in the city’s art profile: Based in Berlin, instigated by the mayor’s office as a showcase for Berlin art this summer, has three established curators (MoMA PS1
director Klaus Biesenbach, the Serpentine Gallery’s Hans Ulrich Obrist and the Pompidou Centre’s Christine Macel) selecting five younger curators to organise the show; and the 7th Berlin Biennale, in 2012, will be curated by
Artur Zmijewski around the theme of ‘political art’, who has issued calls for artists who are not part of the usual
art circuit to put themselves forward.
For this issue, and also for the next, we’ll be visiting artist studios in Berlin. Some of the artists are established,
some are very young; some have galleries, some don’t...
Kreuzberg
When I visited Gabriel Vormstein, who moved to
Berlin after finishing art school in Karlsruhe in 2001,
his studio was rather empty, as he had just shipped
a lot of his work—primarily figure-based drawings
and paintings on unconventional supports—to Paris,
where his solo show at Almine Rech Gallery was due
to open on 1 April (running until 14 May), The floor
was covered in newspaper, some of it daubed with
paint—evidence of failed works, the artist explained,
fragments of which he plans to integrate into pictures
yet to be produced. Thus he recycles his own works,
just as he uses recycled materials, and also as he recycles motifs from art history.
One of the most striking things about Vormstein’s
work is the material that he uses as a base. He is
interested in time and transience, and his ‘colourised’
drawings, as he calls them, are often made straight
onto newspaper. He glues together four double
pages, which provides him with a uniform format;
through the newsprint, which remains clearly visible as a graphic element and enters in a dialogue
with the paint, the exterior world is integrated into
the artwork. But newspaper is an unstable medium,
one that discolours and ages quickly. And since this
is something it shares with the human body, Vormstein’s figures age together with the paper. Themes
of time and fleetingness, then, are preinscribed in
the material. (And today’s news is of course already
history by tomorrow.) Vormstein introduces another
temporal dimension by using a diversity of references: he makes explicit reference to art history,
G a b r i e l Vo r m s t e i n
BERLIN
right: Gabriel Vormstein, The Butterfly Net, 2010, pencil,
marker and watercolour on newspaper, 154 x 111cm, unique,
photo: Cary Whittier, courtesy the artist and Casey Kaplan,
New York. Studio photos: Wilhelm Werthern
frequently echoing or mimicking the figures of Egon
Schiele as well as Toulouse-Lautrec, Minimalism, Pop
and even ancient Egyptian art. These classic, familiar
visuals leave room for the materiality of the works,
whose trashiness is charged with the aesthetic weight
of the past.
Newspaper, though, is not the only support that
Vormstein uses. He also covers blue trash bags with
white wall paint. mounts them on canvas and then
draws on them. Quite unlike paper. plastic is anything but ephemeral. One is reminded of drawings
on plaster, maybe the first stage of a fresco. These
works derive their power precisely from the tension
between the rough material and the delicacy of the
drawing. Sometimes, meanwhile, Vormstein effectively ‘draws’ without any support at all, creating threedimensional drawings or wall sculptures from twigs,
adhesive tape and other materials (including icing
sugar). Some of these are quite abstract, while others are actual landscapes. What they have in common with the drawings and paintings on newspaper is
the fragility and transience of the organic materials.
WW
Andrews, Scott, “Market forces,” San Antonio Current, January 26—February 1, 2011, p. 15
ARTS + CULTURE
Market forces
A bit of con, a bit of protest in Bienko/Vormstein
Artpace installations
by Scott Andrews
Upstairs in the Hudson (Show)Room is Berlin-based Gabriel Vormstein’s The Teeth of the Wind and the Sea, covering all four walls of the large space with a cycloramic
painting rendered on pages of the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung, a German daily newspaper. Here, Romantic tendencies are unambiguous.
On entering the room, the bits copied from works by Egon
Schiele, odd Van Gogh-like sunflowers or blackbirds, and
rough gestural brush strokes seem to impatiently mark the
floor-to-ceiling newsprint like out-of-focus graffiti. Only
the red square transected by a scribed circle in the center of one of the long walls stands firmly. But after initial
confusion the room comes into focus. Like the process of
trying to find one’s place after running pell-mell through
trees into a forest clearing, pattern slowly emerges. Gazed
at broadly, areas of light and dark form repeat in chiaroscuro, though again on closer look, details still dart away
from the emerging composition.
The use of newspaper, an ephemeral material that Vormstein has used for the last decade, hints at the strains of
duration and inevitable loss that concern the artist. A room
off to the side of the large exhibition space is lined with
shallow shelves that hold modest sculptural pieces incorporating white plaster with fragments of dead twigs and
other detritus. Some are incised with line drawings. Referred to by Vormstein as a grotto, the room and its small
works are like a collection of architectural fragments, or
relics. Linking the two rooms are common allusions to
death and history, but in the room of painting, another affect is dominant. Though references to the past abound,
the visual experience holds the present. •
Gabriel Vormstein has exhibited extensively in Europe in
many group shows, including the 4th Berlin Biennial of
Contemporary Art. This is his first solo museum exhibition
and his first project for an American gallery.
Rindfuss, Bryan, “Art Opening: Gabriel Vormstein: The Teeth of the Wind and the Sea,“ San Antonio Current,
February 16, 2011 <http://www.sacurrent.com/calendar/event.asp?whatID=61541>
arts/events | CALENDAR | CURRENT
S
The Teeth of the Wind and the Sea
CRITIC’
PICK
“Capri Sun,” 2010
The lessons of Modernism are re-examined in the work of
Berlin-based artist Gabriel Vormstein. Taking stylistic cues
from Egon Schiele, he most often paints female figures,
typically on newspaper and “other transient, organic, and
‘poor’ materials.” Jewel-toned watercolors saturate and
warp Vormstein’s pages, giving them a three-dimensional quality not unlike the hills and valleys of a topographic map, and his
fluid lines create an odd balance between the cold, hard text in
the background and the romantic imagery in the foreground. Titles
such as “Capri Sun,” “Tiny Fingers,” and “The Lazy Fun Part II”
add an air of whimsy to these portraits, which are, curiously, often
rendered on pages from the financial section. As a resident at
Artpace, Vormstein began experimenting with sculptural elements
said to “extend his two-dimensional works from the walls into
the space of the exhibition.” Although he’s been featured in prestigious group shows in Europe,
including Of Mice + Men: 4th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art, The Teeth of the Wind and the
Sea is Vormstein’s first solo museum show in the world and his first American museum project.
Opening reception and walk-through: free, 6-8:30pm, Artpace, 445 N Main, (210) 212-4900. On
view through May 1.–Bryan Rindfuss
thu
13
renwick gallery
Held Up By Columns
July 8th - August 6th, 2010
Renwick Gallery is pleased to present the group exhibition Held Up By Columns. The exhibition
will have an opening reception on Thursday, July 8th from 6 to 8pm.
The Newspaper is a ticker tape of the stock of our societies. It cascades the events or the cities
into the country. It cascades the events of their countries into our city. It is held up by columns.
Circulation, the essential technique of today, is the old method or the newspaper. Yet few
documents so inspired become so obsolete, so quick, so cyclical as the newspaper. They are
witness of the day, yesterday always by their nature. They age in the sun, like those who write
them and those for whom and about whom they are written. The nature or the material itself is
meant to be left behind, it is frail, and bleeds copy onto the hands of its beholder. It folds
everything into itself.
Held Up By Columns is an exhibition of artworks which utilize the newspaper. This utilization
occurs across a broad range of techniques; from its material presence in collages and paintings;
to its surfacing as imagery in photographs, prints and other media; to its functions, structures,
and formats serving as a model for how an artwork is created and exhibited. The newspaper’s
widespread availability and the supposed ubiquity of its coverage ensure it as a form of
Everymaterial. Its appearance as the thread for an exhibition is not exactly an exaltation nor an
epitaph of the medium, but just a herald of its usage.
The exhibition features the work of Becca Albee, Eric Anglès, Julieta Aranda, Kerstin Brätsch,
Sarah Charlesworth, Jacob Dyrenforth, Jeremy Everett, Nikolas Gambaroff, Robert Gober, Kim
Gordon, Joseph Grigely, Karl Haendcl, Patrick Hill, Christian Holstad, Matt Keegan, Michael
Krebber, Jason Loebs, Dave McKenzie, Ulrike Müller and Carola Dertnig, Florian Morlat, Matt
Mullican, Murad Khan Mumtaz, Martha Rosler, Al Ruppersberg, Kate Shepherd, Paul Sietsema,
Al Taylor, Wolfgang Tillmans, Paul Thek, Gabriel Vormstcin, Kelley Walker, Jordan Wolfson
and Amy Yao.
45 Renwick Street New York NY 10013
T 212 609 3535 F 212 609 3533 renwickgallery.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
GABRIEL VORMSTEIN
BABY ABC
EXHIBITION DATES:
OPENING:
GALLERY HOURS:
APRIL 2 – MAY 1, 2010
FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 6 – 8PM
TUESDAY – SATURDAY, 10AM – 6PM
Casey Kaplan is pleased to present a new body of work by German artist, Gabriel Vormstein. In his third
exhibition at the gallery, Vormstein presents six portraits on newspaper of women appropriated from artworks
by Austrian artist, Egon Schiele (1890 -1918).
Vormstein’s interest in exploring the relationship between figuration and abstraction began under the teachings
of Andreas Slominski and Silvia Bächli at the Staatlichen Academy in Karlsruhe, where he graduated in 2001.
Inspired by an adoration of art history, specifically symbolic, romantic gestures and Modernism, Vormstein looks
to Schiele. The quality of line that caresses each female body resurrects the late, young artist. In this exhibition,
the ground onto which the women take form and the medium that flows from their clothes, hair and makeup is
where the drama unfolds.
Vormstein believes that it is important to re-examine the lessons of Modernism. By redrawing the figures, he is
capturing the body as an abstract shape that can be filled with new choices of color and medium, in his case
the ground of newspapers, particularly the mechanical text of the financial pages. For the past ten years,
Vormstein has worked with newspaper and other transient, organic, and “poor” materials, reminiscent of Arte
Povera. His paintings have catalogued days, moments in time, and fleeting histories through the text and
images that adorn his chosen ‘canvases’.
The women portrayed in the portraits stand alone, psychologically charged and complex. Their fragility is
mirrored in Vormstein’s choice relationship between figure and ground. Simultaneously, in contrast with the
women’s graphic skin, watercolor and gouache flow freely in their inherent, transparent fluidity; blending
foreground with back, hair with clothes and makeup to skin. Like protagonists in a story, new characters are
revealed through Vormstein’s personal inflections. Informing one another the portraits resonate, transcending
time.
Gabriel Vormstein (b. 1974 in Konstanz, Germany) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Recently, Vormstein had
a solo exhibition, “Papyrus containing the spell to preserve its possessor,” at Meyer Riegger, Berlin, Germany,
2009. Group exhibitions include “Seltsam, so lose im Raum,” Kulturstiftung Schloss Agathenburg,
Agathenburg, Germany, curated by Sabine Mila Kunz, through May 24, 2010; “Cargo Manifest,” Kunsthalle
Autocenter, Berlin, Germany, 2009; “Berlin 2000,” PaceWildenstein, New York, New York, 2009; “Don Brown,
Daniel Lergon, R.H.Quaytman, Gabriel Vormstein, Lawrence Weiner”, Almine Rech Gallery, Bruxelles, Belgium,
2009; “Fit to Print”, Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY, 2008; "Made in Germany“, Kestner Gesellschaft, Sprengel
Museum Hannover, Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover, Germany, 2007; “Of Mice + Men: 4th Berlin Biennial for
Contemporary Art”, curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni, and Ali Subotnick, Berlin, Germany,
2006. The artist was the recipient of the Graduiertenstipendium des Landes Baden-Württemberg Award in
2002 and is nominated for the 2009/2010 Sovereign European Art prize.
For further exhibition information please contact Loring Randolph, [email protected]
Next Gallery Exhibition: Trisha Donnelly, May 8 – June 26, 2010
GALLERY ARTISTS: HENNING BOHL, JEFF BURTON, NATHAN CARTER, MILES COOLIDGE, JASON DODGE, TRISHA DONNELLY,
GEOFFREY FARMER, PAMELA FRASER, LIAM GILLICK, ANNIKA VON HAUSSWOLFF, CARSTEN HÖLLER, BRIAN JUNGEN, JONATHAN
MONK, MARLO PASCUAL, DIEGO PERRONE, JULIA SCHMIDT, SIMON STARLING, DAVID THORPE, GABRIEL VORMSTEIN, GARTH
WEISER, JOHANNES WOHNSEIFER
Meyer Riegger
Gabriel Vormstein
Papyrus containing the spell to preserve its possessor
27.06.2009 - 31.07.2009, Berlin
We are pleased to present Gabriel Vormsteins third solo show, his first one in our Berlin exhibition space, titled
“Papyrus containing the spell to preserve its possessor”.
Gabriel Vormsteins paintings, collages and installations compile different forms of temporality revolving around
the temporary topicality of a condition. The idea of finitude becomes tangible in the use of porous, transient materials, recalling Arte Povera in their limited consistence. The texture of thin paper, the brittle quality of dry wood
or the liquidation of tea into paint – the decomposability of the materials that Vormstein uses forms the shape
of his works, which are characterised by dissolution. Along with newsprint, which comprises Gabriel Vormsteins
base layer of choice as a replacement for, and extension of canvas, his newer pieces include plastic transparencies, and fine, easily modified varieties of paper as image bases. Through installation components in the
gallery space that cover the walls with paper, he has extended the basis of his work onto the wall surfaces of
the showroom.
In doing so, image surfaces and space have become corporeal image-objects due to their materiality and the
techniques used to make them. The texture of paper is especially accentuated in pieces like “Processions of
Digestions”, in which the tissue of the paper bulges and curves like an epidermis after being painted on with
pigments and naturally colouring essences of coffee and tea. Generating an artificial membrane in layers of
materials becomes notable in collages such as “Wander Above”: Here Vormstein adapted napkin decoupage
as an artistic process, furnishing the newspaper leaf with a coating of multicoloured, transparent layers.
While there the basic form of the picture originates in its depths, in Vormsteins collages on transparency it
arises from a cavernous stratification. The layering of dispersion paint, graphite, organic materials and foil – as
in the piece “Archeopt/What can be safely read” - creates a fragile surface texture, capturing the image as a
synthetic dermis. By converting a trash bag into a base for a painting Gabriel Vormstein creates an artificial
patina, thus satirizing the historical as an artificial appropriation.
A formative aspect of Vormsteins pictures is the recitation of cultural and art historical motifs – among others
drawn from the expressionism of Vienna Moderne, or the geometrical imagery of Classical Modernism. The artist brings together opposing tendencies and stylistic categories such as Minimalism, Art Informel or Hard Edge,
and places them in an oppositional as well as dialogical alignment. Themes such as portraits, fruit or vanitas
still lives and landscapes are juxtaposed, while each is given equal importance. This visualises art history as
a history of sequences. Gabriel Vormstein sketches the limited durability and modified appearance of styles in
an autonomous visual language: Viewing style as a variable of an inner structural principle corresponds to a
concept articulated at the beginning of the 20th century in the writings of Alois Riegl.
Singling out and reusing specific pictoral elements also ensues in Gabriel Vormsteins picture cycles that draw
upon his own preceding works, components of these enter his new pictures as concrete material. In doing this,
the artist challenges the function of conservation, while also creating a stance which portrays and upholds
the past as seen from a current perspective through the process of recycling old images. Gabriel Vormstein
encodes the limitation of validity as well as the processual aspect of painting in his work as a narrative moment,
and simultaneously reduces this to absurdity in memorabilia and relics of his actions.
Christina Irrgang
04.02.2007 – 06.05.2007
HAMMWÖHNER/JAKOB/VORMSTEIN
SCHOOL OF FLOWERS - COME LET US SMILE A LITTLE SPACE/UPON FOND NATURE'S MORBID GRACE
VERNISSAGE: 03.02.2007 18:00
Sebastian Hammwöhner, Dani Jakob and Gabriel Vormstein, in addition to their own artistic activity, have been creating cooperative works for the last few years, in which they mask out their
own individual authorship in favor of the collective comprehensive piece of art. They are assemblies of individual sculptural objects comprised mainly of found, “poor” materials. Irrespective
of the media hierarchies of contemporary art, they transform natural elements (such as branches
and hay) and remnants of our civilization (such as bricks, glass splinters, books and newspapers)
into art. “I cannot forward, or rewind, this state of being, this aged resign – let the wind catch
a rainbow on fire…“, is the title of their work displayed in Glarus: strangely symbolic objects
(Vanitas symbols of our time?), conjoining on an oversized tabletop in an atmospherically complete composition. Both the title and the work itself indicate the intensive concern of the three
artists with historical, literary and artistic sources, but especially with the mind-set of the Romantic period. It is not astounding, therefore, to hear that they consider their works to be allegories
that could be encountered in Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymus Bosch or Caspar David Friedrich.
Even if the sense of these allegories remains tenuous – the emotional, magic potential of Hammwöhner, Jakob and Vormstein’s works is clearly noticeable.
Sebastian Hammwöhner (born 1974), Dani Jakob (born 1973), Gabriel Vormstein (born 1974)
met during the course of their art studies at the academy in Karlsruhe and now live in Berlin. They have jointly exhibited, among others venues, at the Municipal Museum Abteiberg
Mönchengladbach (2003) and at the Berlin Biennale (2006). Beginning mid-April 2007 the artistic trio will be showing a second installation in the side-lit hall of the Kunsthaus Glarus, again
the surface of a table on which text documents, books, pictures, drawings and pressed leaves, in
other words the sources of inspiration for the three artists, can be seen.
Eveline Bernasconi et al., Made in Germany, Kestner Gesellschaft, Sprengel Museum
Hannover, Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover, Ostfildern: Haje Cantz, 2007, p. 268-271,
GABRIEL VORMSTEIN
Gabriele Sana
Bei, Gabriel Vormstein scheint der Aspekt der
Vergänglichkeit ein konzeptuelles Merkmal seiner
künstlerischen Arbeit zu sein. Die Materialität
seiner Werke ist geprägt durch das Moment des
Poweren, wenn er Zeitungspapier als Malgrund
wählt und für seine Installationen Astwerk und
Fundholz bevorzugt.
Seine Malereien entstehen auf den Seiten der
Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung. Vormstein tranformiert das profane, alltägliche Material Zeitungspapier in poetische, melancholische Bilder. Die
kolorierten Oberflächen bringen malerische Bilder
hervor, die mit unterschiedlichen Motiven Bezüge
herstellen. Es sind florale und figürliche Darstellungen, aber auch abstrakte Formen. Vormstein stellt
mit diesen Bildern eine Verbindung zur europäischen Kunstgeschichte her, insbesondere zu den
Wiener Malern der Jahrhundertwende wie Gustav
Klimt und Egon Schiele. In einer subtilen Vereinnahmung, die gleichzeitig auch eine Befragung
vergangener Stile ist, entwickelt er eine eigene
künstlerische Sprache, die durch die Wahl des
Materials den Charakter einer Skizze beibahält.
Der Rekurs auf die Arte povera der Sechzigerjahre zeigt sich auch in den installativen Arbeiten.
Oftmals werden Zeitungsbilder integriert und mit
Ästen, Draht, Klebeband und anderen Materialien
kombiniert. Vormstein erzielt in seinen Arbeiten
eine moderns Synthese, die persönliche Interessen
und Einflüsse mit historischen und kulturellen Referenzen verbindet.
The aspect of transience seems to be a conceptual characteristic of Gabriel Vormstein’s artistic
oeuvre. The materiality of his works is marked
by an aspect of miserableness when he chooses
to paint on newspaper or inserts into his installations the branches and wood he has gathered.
His paintings are created upon the pages of the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Vormstein transforms the profane, everyday material of newspaper
into poetical, melancholic pictures. The colored
surfaces engender painterly images whose diverse
motifs give rise to manifold relationships. There are
floral and figural representations, but also abstract
forms. With these pictures, Vormstein establishes
a link to the history of European art, especially to
the Viennese painters at the turn of the nineteenth
century, such as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. In
a subtle monopolization which is also an investigation of past styles, he develops a personal artistic
language which, through its choice of material, retains the character of a sketch. The recourse to the
Arte Povera of the nineteen-sixties is also evident
in his installational works. Newspaper pictures are
often integrated and combined with branches, wire,
adhesive tape, and other materials. In his works,
Vormstein aims at a modern synthesis connecting
personal interests and influences with historical and
cultural references.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
GABRIEL VORMSTEIN:
The (oII (OO) oI) -:
EXHIBITION DATES:
OPENING:
GALLERY HOURS: SEPTEMBER 8 - OCTOBER 7, 2006
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8th, 6 - 8 PM
TUESDAY – SATURDAY, 10 - 6 PM
Casey Kaplan is pleased to announce “The (oll (OO) ol) -:” the gallery’s second solo exhibition of the Berlin-based artist Gabriel
Vormstein. For this show, Vormstein will present new works on paper and wall-based sculptures.
Known for his inventive use of non-traditional materials, Vormstein continues to work with newspaper sheets taken primarily
from the Frankfurter Allegmeine Zeitung as the canvas for his watercolor and gouache paintings. The vibrantly-colored surfaces depict pictorial images of floral motifs, provocative female silhouettes, and geometric patterns, alongside text, abstract
shapes, and Minimalist forms. Depicting figurative and abstract imagery alike, Vormstein uses simple gestures and everyday
materials to create poetically melancholic pictures. Likewise, his weathered wall-based sculptures are made from everyday
materials, including tree branches, wire, tape, twine, and old T-shirts.
With all the works in the exhibition, Vormstein illustrates a modern synthesis of various cultural and art historical references
along with personal influences. The artist cites Arte Povera-- an experimental approach to art begun in the late 1960s in Italy
which uses ‘poor’ materials and a sparse aesthetic--the romanticism of the European Expressionists, such as Gustav Klimt
and Egon Schiele, and the machinist aesthetic of Dada and the Surrealists as primary influences to create his own visual
pastiche.
Culled from a variety of artistic and cultural sources, Vormstein contrasts the transitory nature of his materials with the potency
and permanency of the artistic idea. As consistent with the fluid nature of the works, the title of the exhibition uses letters to
represent the gallery’s architectural design, visually conceptualizing the evolving relationship between the artworks presented
and the manner in which they are displayed. By mapping-out seemingly conflicting forms in an open and original framework,
Vormstein encourages an active exchange between the exhibition space, the viewer, and the artwork.
With the physical world as a point of departure, Vormstein captures the feeling for the artistic process and materials as a
means of examining the relationship between man, nature, and time. Conjuring a utopian world marked by traces of natural
and human activity, the works in this exhibition fuse whimsical artistic forms with forms of nature to embody the dialectic between the natural and the human. Using different adapted symbols, materials, and styles, Vormstein subtly confronts the real
world with fantasy and emotion.
Gabriel Vormstein has recently exhibited at “Of Mice + Men: 4th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art,” curated by Maurizio
Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni, and Ali Subotnick, Berlin, Germany in 2006; “Gabriel Vormstein,” The Deutsche Bundesbank,
Frankfurt, Germany in 2005; and“ La morte no trapassa,” Meyer Riegger Galerie, Karlsruhe, Germany.” The artist was the
recipient of the Kunstfonds Baden-Württemberg Award in 2003 and the Graduiertenstipendium des Landes Baden-Württemberg Award in 2002.
FOR FURTHER EXHIBITION INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT THE GALLERY.
NEXT GALLERY EXHIBITION:
JULIA SCHMIDT
OCTOBER 14 – NOVEMBER 11, 2006
JEFF BURTON, NATHAN CARTER, MILES COOLIDGE, JASON DODGE, TRISHA DONNELLY, PAMELA FRASER, LIAM GILLICK, ANNIKA VON HAUSSWOLFF, CARSTEN HÖLLER, BRIAN JUNGEN, JONATHAN MONK, DIEGO PERRONE, JULIA
SCHMIDT, SIMON STARLING, GABRIEL VORMSTEIN, JOHANNES WOHNSEIFER
Art in Review; Gabriel Vormstein
By ROBERTA SMITH
Published: October 6, 2006
The (oII (OO) oI) -:
Casey Kaplan
525 West 21st Street, Chelsea
Through tomorrow
Despite a title said in the press release to be a typographical rendering of the gallery’s floor plan, Gabriel Vormstein’s second solo show in New York has an engaging free-spiritedness and modesty, although both seem slightly
feigned.
This young German artist limits himself to ephemeral and eccentric materials, including wire and twigs and, most
often, watercolor and gouache on big sheets of newsprint (mostly Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). Nearly everything involves brightly colored tape, whether applied to paper in abstract designs or used to hold wall sculptures
together.
Thus constrained, Mr. Vormstein rifles through art history, from Post-Impressionism to Minimalism. His watercolors
of waifish young women can bring to mind the figures of Schiele and Klimt, while elongated combinations of tape
and magazine pages suggest Wiener Werkstätte and De Stijl geometries. There’s some Dada insouciance here, a
reference to van Gogh there, a Cubist still life elsewhere. Two of the most beautiful works are ‘’A Song for X After
He’s X,’’ which involves a musical score made of wire and cherries, and an untitled sculpture that uses soil, sugar,
cardboard, a Ping-Pong ball and cereal to suggest a dead and decaying body, possibly that of a fallen drummer boy,
under snow.
Mr. Vormstein’s feeling for slight, impoverished materials and his emphasis on drawing are shared with many of his
contemporaries. But his historicist mixing and matching seems typical of an older generation of male, German painters. It makes an intriguing combination that could develop in several directions, not all equally interesting.
ROBERTA SMITH
René Zechlin and Ciara Healy (eds), Blake & Sons - Alternative lifestyles and mystcism in contemporary art,
curated by René Zechlin, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork: Glucksman, 2006, p. 104-105.
“One to Watch”, Gabriel Vormstein, Artkrush, March 23, 2006
Rene Echlin and Ciara Healy (eds), Blake & Sons - Alternative Lifestyles & Mysticism in Contemporary
Art, Lewis Gluckman Gallery, 2006, pg 104-105
BLAKE & SONS
The Argument, 2005
Gouache and watercolour
on newspaper, 159 x 112cm
Courtesy Gallery Meyer
Riegger, Karlsruhe
ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLES & MYSTICISM IN CONTEMPORARY ART
Gabriel Vormstein born 1974 in Konstanz. Germany. Currently resides”, Berlin. Germany
Gabriel Vormstein’s works combine past and present in manifold ways. His watercolours and gouache paintings reveal loans from Egyptian motifs, abstract minimalism and erotic portrayals from the history of art against the background of plain
newspaper. The double pages of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the
most important German dailies, which are employed, have a decisive influence on
the works. The newspaper is not only the medium, but also determines the format
and, together with the motifs, forms a polysemic poetic interplay of references. The
art history cited in the paintings hovers in front of current topics in today’s news.
The past is shown to be something durable that pushes transient news (Vormstein
often uses the especially short-lived stock exchange news) into the background.
This interpretation of an enduring presence of the past vis-à-vis a short-lived and
transient present is further reinforced by the fast ageing of the newspaper as material. Because of its basic quality, the paper quickly becomes brownish and even
brittle. The material itself becomes a portrayal of decay and questions in the same
step the ideal durability of the motif.
While the title of The Argument (2005) is referring to a poem by William Blake,
the visible newspaper clipping creates a direct correspondence with the painting’s
content. Next to a painted dandelion, one can read an article about a conference
on Georg Forster. This contemporary of William Blake’s took part in James Cook’s
expedition around the world and as writer, naturalist and anthropologist pioneered
new methodologies. A relativisation of one’s own judgment against rationalism and
the introduction of a subjective perspective of knowledge at that time did not permit
any coherent worldview, but is precisely for this reason very modern from today’s
standpoint. Relativisation and subjectivisation are also expressed by Gabriel Vormstein’s artistic superimpositions of history. As with Blake, it does not lead to any
clearly formulated statement but, to take up the quotation from Friedrich Schlegel
about Forster at the end of the text, “You cannot put down any of his writings without
having been stimulated to think for oneself”.
Selected solo exhibitions: Perspektiven heutiger
Malerei, Deutsche Bundesbank. Frankfurt am Main,
Germany (2005): La Morte no Trapasso, Meyer Riegger Galerie, Karlsruhe, Germany (2004); Seems to
B-Soddisfaction, Incomplection, Putrefaction, Casey
Kaplan, New York (2004).
Selected articles and publications: Iris Cramer: Perspektiven heutiger Malerei: Gabriel Vormstein, Deutshe
Bundesbank, Frankfurt am Main (2005; Michael Wilson;
Gabriel Vormstein, Artforum (Feb 2005); Brian Sholis:
Critics Pick: Gabriel Vormstein, Artforum.com (Dec
2004); Quetzalcoatl comes through, Revolver, Frankfurt
Am Main (2003).
Selected group exhibitions: Deutschland sucht, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany (2004); Strategies
of Desire, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, Switzerland
(2004); actionbutton, Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst
der BRD. Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2003); Circles’
5: Berlin—Montana sacra, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany
(2002): Der Wegelagerer, Meyer Riegger Galerie,
Karlsruhe, Germany (2001).
Stephanie von Spreter, “Former Jewish School for Girls,” Of Mice and Men: 4th Berlin Biennial
for Contemporary Art, organized by KW Institute for Contemporary Art, curated by Maurizio
Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni, and Ali Subotnick, Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2006, p. 86.
Sebastian Hammwöhner/
Dani Jakob/Gabriel Vormstein
Ein unheimleches Gefühl der Ungewissheit gepaart mit
Neugier beschleicht einen bei der Begegnug mit dem Werk
von Hammwöhner, Jakob und Vormstein, die sich während
ihres Studius an der Staatlichen Kunstakademie Karlsruhe
(1995-2001) kennen lernten. Obhwol die KünstlerInnen
auch unabhängig voneinander arbeiten, ensteht aud ihren
gemeinsamen Projekten in homogenes narratives “Gesamtkunstwerk” mit dunklen Untertönen. Ihre Arbeiten erscheinen als Überrest einer seit langem aufgegebenen Vergangenheit; mit gefundenen Materialien beschwören sie eine
dystopische, von menschlichen Spuren und verhängnisvollen Begegnungen gekennzeichnete Welt.
In Tekeli-li! (2001) sind Schlafsäcke, Decken, Tassen, ein
Totenkopf und weitere Spuren menschlicher Existenz von
einem weißen Puder überzogn und auf einem behelfsmäßigen Floß angeordnet. Die Szene verweist auf Théodore
Géricaults Das Floß der Medusa (1818), ein Schlüsselbild
der Romantik, in dem die Geschichte der letzten Überlebended der gekenterten Fregatte Medusa sowie deren Tod,
auf Furcht erregende Weise dargestellt sind. Der Titel der
Installation bezieht sich auf eine andere grausame Geschichte, Edgar Allan Poes Roman Arthur Gordon Pym von 1838.
Pym lässt sich auf ein maritimes Abeneuer ein, das sich schnell zu einem Alptraum entickelt, als sein Schiff vor einer
Insel sinkt. Noch grässlicher wird dieses Erlebnis durch die
traumatisierended “Tekeli-li!”- Schreie, die die EinwohnerInnen der Insel ausstoßen, sobald ihnen etwas Weißes begegnet. Der weiße Puder verweist buchstäblich auf dieses
symbolische narrative Element. Doch vor allem mit der
von den KünstlerInnen evozierten Atmosphäre erinnert das
Werk an Poes Geschichte, indem es den Wunsch weckt, das
Unerklärliche zu begreifen.
In I cannot forward, or rewind, this state of being, this
aged resign—let the wind catch a rainbow on fire... (2004)
werden wit ebenfalls mit Objekten vermeintlich untergegangener Zivilisationen konfrontiert—dem Abdruck eines in
die Luft ragenden Armes, einem Drachen aus Zweigen und
Fäden sowie anderen Gegenständen,—und fragen uns, warum diese Zivilisationen verschwunden sind. Durch dieses
Gefühl des Unbekannten und Geheimnisvollen wecken die
KünstlerInnen Neugier und Furcht und beschwören eine romantische Sehnsucht nach etwas, das wir nicht einmal uns
selbst erklären können.
086
Ehemalige Jüdische Mädchenschule Former Jewish School for Girls
*1974 in Frechen
*1973 in Freiburg
*1974 in Konstanz
leben and arbeiten live and work
in Berlin
An uncanny feeling of uncertainty paired with curiosity is
experienced when encountering the work of Hammwöhner,
Jakob, and Vormstein who met whilst studying at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Karlsruhe (1995 - 2001). Although the
artists also work independently, in rheir collaborarive efforts
they fuse their creative input to form a homogenous, narrative “Gesamtkunstwerk” with dark undertones. Their work
appears to be a remnant of a past long abandoned; they use
found materials to conjure a dystopian world marked by human traces and fateful encounters.
In Tekeli·li! (2001), sleeping bags, blankets, cups, a skull,
and other traces of human existence all dusted with white
powder are balanced on a makeshift raft. The scene references Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa (1818), a key
painting of romanticism in which the story of the last survivors of the shipwrecked frigate Medusa—and their death— is
depicted in the most frightful manner. The work’s title refers
to another gruesome story of loss and survival, namely Edgar Allan Poe’s 1838 novel The Narrarive of Arthur Gordon
Pym of Nantucket. Pym embarks on a maritime adventure
which quickly turns into a nightmare when his ship founders
on an island. The experience is made even more ghastly by
rhe traumatizing cries of rhe island’s savages—Tekeli-li!—
when they encounter anything white. The white coating that
covers the artists’ installation refers literally to this symbolic
narrarive device. However, the atmosphere evokes the desire
to grasp the inevitable, which resembles Poe’s Story.
In I cannot forward, or rewind, this state of being, this
aged resign—let the wind catch a rainbow on fire... (2004)
we are also confronted with objecrs that could stem from
past civilizations. A cast of an arm reaching out in the air,
and a kite made from twigs and strings, among other objects,
sit on a large white table. We wonder why the civilizations
from which these abandoned objects have perished. It is this
sense of the unknown and mysterious that the artists evoke in
their collaborative work, thereby addressing our curiosities
and fears, and a romantic longing for something we cannot
even explain ourselves.
SVS
R.C. Baker, Requiescat in Pace, Villagevoice.com, September 21, 2006, accessed 21 September 2006
<http://villagevoice.com/art/0639,baker,74534,13. html>
Best in Show
Requiescat in Pace
by R.C. Baker
September 21st, 2006 4:24 PM
Gabriel Vormstein
A low ledge dusted with powered sugar casts a granular shadow across soil spread on the
gallery floor. Figurative drawings and abstract collages of colored tape, all done on large
newspaper sheets, continue this vibe of impermanence, especially the discolored circles
burned into the newsprint with UV light. In a wall sculpture, withered black cherries, walnuts,
and tiny bells dangle from taut horizontal wires like musical notes for a spare, forgotten lament.
Casey Kaplan, 525 W 21st, 212-645-7335.
Through Oct 7.
http://villagevoice.com/art/0639,baker,74534,13. html
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
GABRIEL VORMSTEIN:
SEEMS TO B: SODDISFACTION, INCOMPLECTION, PUTREFACTION
EXHIBITION DATES:
OPENING:
GALLERY HOURS: NOVEMBER 19, 2004 – JANUARY 8, 2005
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19th, 6 – 8 PM
TUESDAY – SATURDAY, 10 – 6 PM
Casey Kaplan is pleased to announce, “Seems to B: Soddisfaction, Incomplection, Putrefaction,” the first solo exhibition
in New York of the Berlin-based artist, Gabriel Vormstein. For this show, Vormstein will present a body of new works on
paper and two wall-based sculptures.
In his works on paper, Gabriel aligns sheets taken primarily from the financial section of the Frankfurter Allegmeine Zeitung newspaper (one of Germany’s leading daily publications) as the backdrop for his watercolor and gouache images.
The newspaper, considered a ‘low’ artistic material, is juxtaposed with a prestigious journal, challenging the aestheticization of ‘high art.’
Utilizing both figurative and abstract imagery, Vormstein transforms the humble material of newspaper into poetically,
melancholic pictures. The vibrantly-colored surfaces depict pictorial images-- ancient Egyptian iconography, floral motifs,
and couples embracing-- alongside text, abstract shapes, and Minimalist forms. Vormstein references the work of the
European Expressionists, specifically, the Viennese painters, Gustav Klimt, and Egon Schiele, subtly appropriating ‘high
art’ imagery into his own visual language.
Culled from a variety of artistic and cultural sources, the artist cites the Arte Povera movement as a primary influence.
In 1967 Italian art critic Germano Celant coined the phrase Arte Povera, literally meaning-- “poor art”-- to describe an
experimental approach to art using a spare and weathered aesthetic. Vormstein has chosen to use newspaper, a material
that eventually dematerializes, as an apt representation of physical decay. Gradually over time, the works on paper transform into leaf-like forms. Likewise, Vormstein’s wall-based sculptures are made from found objects--everyday materials,
including tree branches, wire, tape, and twine. With the use of tree branches, also inclined to decompose, Vormstein
contrasts the transitory nature of the materials with the symbolic nature and permanency of the artistic idea.
With all of the works in the exhibition, Vormstein illustrates a modern synthesis of various cultural and historical references
that are interlaced with personal interests and influences. As consistent with the evolving nature of the works included
in the show, the title of the exhibition explicitly refers to the artistic process-- the desired point of satisfaction-- and the
subsequent reality of artistic failure and imperfection. Emphasized by different adapted symbols, styles, and references,
Vormstein uses materials—both organic and industrial—to create ephemeral works with immense presence.
Gabriel Vormstein received his formal artistic training at the Stadium an der Staatlichen Akademie der Bildenden Künste
in Karlsruhe, Germany. He was the recipient of the Kunstfonds Baden-Württemberg Award in 2003 and the Graduiertenstipendium des Landes Baden-Württemberg Award in 2002. Recent solo exhibitions include “La Morte No Trapassa” at
Meyer-Riegger Gallery in Karlsruhe, Germany in early 2004.
FOR FURTHER EXHIBITION INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT THE GALLERY AT:
TEL. 212 645 7335 FAX. 212 645 7835 E-MAIL. [email protected] URL www.caseykaplangallery.com
CASEY KAPLAN IS PLEASED TO PARTICIPATE IN ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH:
DECEMBER 2-5 2004
NEXT GALLERY EXHIBITION:
GOODBYE 14th STREET JANUARY 14 – FEBRUARY 12, 2005
JEFF BURTON, NATHAN CARTER, MILES COOLIDGE, JASON DODGE, TRISHA DONNELLY, CEAL FLOYER, PAMELA
FRASER, ANNA GASKELL, LIAM GILLICK, ANNIKA VON HAUSSWOLFF, CARSTEN HÖLLER, JONATHAN MONK,
DIEGO PERRONE, SIMON STARLING, ANNIKA STRÖM, JOHANNES WOHNSEIFER
Sholis, Brian, Critics’ Pick, Artforum, November 2005
New York
CRITICS’ PICK
Gabriel Vormstein
CASEY KAPLAN
416 West 14th Street
November 19-January 09
A treble clef (drawn on the wall with the burned end of a branch) hides near the ceiling at the entrance to German artist Gabriel Vormstein’s New York solo debut, suggesting that the eight works
on paper and two sculptures may be construed as a musical composition of sorts. His composer of
choice would be Mahler, it seems, as the watercolor and gouache works (each drawn or collaged
onto two unfolded pages of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) make liberal use of fin de siècle
Viennese iconography; they present decorative floral motifs, kaleidoscopically bright geometric
patterns, and portraits of kissing couples à la Klimt against the ground of current events. The wallmounted sculptures consist of tree branches held together with tape and juxtaposed with garlic, an
onion, a bell, and a rock; some bands of the tape are brightly colored, and the works possess an
Andre Cadere-meets-arte povera charm. They come off as whimsical and improvised, and it is the
delicacy of Vormstein’s touch—combined with an ability to present clichéd subjects without succumbing to sentimentality—that gives this show its appeal.
—Brian Sholis
http://www.artforum.comlindex.php?pn=picks&place=New%20York#picks8058
Gabriel Vormstein-Casey Kaplan, Artforum, February 2005
FEBRUARY 2005
Gabriel Vormsteln, Untitled (box), 2004, watercolor
and gouache on newspaper, 61 3/4x 44 3/8”.
GABRIEL VORMSTEIN
CASEY KAPLAN
In a startlingly literal attempt to connect
his works and anchor them to their context,
Gabriel Vormstein, in his recent New York
debut at Casey Kaplan, went so far as to
bind his delicate paintings together with
wire and dot the gallery floor with rocks.
With just a handful of exhibition appearances to his name, the young Berlin-based
artist is sufficiently inexperienced that the
gesture might have signaled a lack of confidence were it not consistent with a lyrical aesthetic informed by a web of cultural
references, chief among them the material
experiments of arte povera.
In giving this show the convoluted title
“Seems to B: Soddisfaction, Incomplection, Putrefaction,” Vormstein alluded to
a kind of creative posthistory in which the
work of art marks not the conclusion but
only the beginning. Just as arte povera rescued the spare and the perishable for art,
Vormstein, too, revels in the inevitability
of decay: He constructs awkward sculptures from tree branches and electrical tape
and makes paintings on unprimed sheets
of newspaper. (That the journal he favors,
the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, is one
of Germany’s most respected financial and
cultural broadsheets, of course, does noth-
ing to offset its ultimate dematerialization.)
The imagery in Vormstein’s paintings
has clear roots in European Expressionism: The tangle of dried-up leaves and
blossoms in You love the sun don’t you (all
works 2004) suggests a reworking of Egon
Schiele’s Sunflower, 1909-10, while a rendering of two entwined figures revisits the
Viennese painter’s Two Girls Embracing
Each Other, 1915. But there were other,
less readily identifiable sources on display: The abstracted image of a starry sky
was derived from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, while the elegant white loops of
Bruised souls at zero might function as an
homage to a number of abstractionist gurus
from Robert Mangold to Ellsworth Kelly.
Yet if the contents ofVormstein’s arthistory bookshelves are easy to deduce, his
art amounts to more than either critical
pilfering or respectful tribute. For example,
in his image of a decorated box, there’s
something about the combination of neat,
rigid geometry and wrinkled, vulnerable
surface that conjures a subtle emotional
pull, a certain unasked-for sympathy. And
there’s something curiously affecting in the
way that in Failure has a fragrance, a floral
collage partially obscures newspaper pages
that carry both car ads and reproductions of
canonical works by Goya and David. Strategic, perhaps, but with feeling.
In the show’s two sculptures, Fixuplooksharp and Untitled (nOo-gOo), Vormstein
also manages to temper references of varying degrees of obscurity with a twinge of
melancholia, reminding us that making,
looking at, and thinking about art can still
be—in spite of the market’s tendency toward ever-increasing spectacularization—a
rather private, personal concern. Fixuplooksharp, a loose bundle of branches topped
with a bulb of garlic, a small bell, and an
onion, has a slightly shamanistic feel-like
something Joseph Beuys might have brandished at a passing coyote. Untitled (nOogOo), a bough ringed with orange, purple,
green, brown, white, and black tape, could
be a maypole straight from Robin Hardy’s
cult pastoral horror movie The Wicker Man
(1973). Yet both works transcend these and
other diverse points of departure, achieving
an unforced, organic look and feel. Like
Vormstein’s young oeuvre as a whole, they
carry but aren’t burdened by a sense of
genuine mystery.
—MW
Goings on About Town, The New Yorker, January 10, 2005
GABRIEL VORMSTEIN
Vormstein glues together pages from the financial
section of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to make
an easel-size surface for painting. Some of these
panels are covered over with watercolor or gouache
and turned into Constructivist-style abstractions.
Wires extending from two works recall Rodchenko’s corner-installed “Counter Reliefs,” strengthening the Russian-Constructivist allusion. Elsewhere,
Vormstein breaks into Expressionism in the vein of
Schiele or Klimt. One work, titled “Failure Has a
Fragrance,” places delicate watercolor flowers over
a news story featuring an image of David’s starkly
neoclassic “Oath of the Horatii.” Through Jan. 8.
(Kaplan, 416 W. 14th St. 212-645-7335.)
Meyer Riegger
Tel (+49) (0)721/821292
Fax (+49) (0)721/9822141
E-mail [email protected]
http://www.meyer-riegger.de
Meyer Riegger Galerie . Klauprechtstr. 22 . D - 76137 Karlsruhe
Gabriel Vormstein
La morte non trapasso
17.Januar - 21.Februar 2004
We are pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Gabriel Vormstein in our gallery.
In a multi-layered way the transitoriness is the motive of Gabriel Vormstein’s works. Principal elements
of his work are newsprint as the background image of his paintings and combined found sticks as installations. The traces of time characterize the aesthetics of both materials and at the same time allude to
contentwise references. A fast purge signs the specifics of material and social function of newspaper.
Transferred to Gabriel Vormstein’s works it remains an index of already passed events of the day and
at the same time becomes alienated by its “new” presence as an art piece. Emphasized by different
adapted styles and symbols, the paintings as well refer to disappearing and upcoming cultural periods
of time. In this sense the past is attached to the present.
The obviously organic forms of the dead, sometimes weathered sticks recall their authentic origin.
At the same time the paintings, coloured tapes, scrap of cloth and other articles transform the sticks
to a new meaning. They cause memories of archaic ritual tools. Like the painting on newsprint, the
installations refer to cultural history and, beyond that, they are opportunities of new actions. Gabriel
Vormstein’s decision to work with those “poor materials” undermines the conception of the durable
preservation of an art work, prevailing in the western culture, and its immanent definition of “high art”.
The special fascination of its work lies in the interconnection of different culture-historical references
with the personal view of the artist.
The combination of a conceptual and at the same time romantic artistic attitude seems to be paradox.
The result are poetically melancholic pictures, which join themselves in the two and three-dimensional
space of now. By bringing up for discussion their own vanity, they expose the existence of duration as
illusion.