PRESS RELEASE
Lars Theurkauff - One
January 28 -
February 19,
2011
Cain Schulte Contemporary
Art, 251 Post, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94108
Opening
Reception: Friday, January 28, 5:30 to
7:30pm
Cain Schulte Contemporary
Art is pleased to announce One, the American debut solo show of Berlin
artist Lars Theuerkauff. The show opens on Friday, January 28 with a
reception from 5:30 to 7:30 with the artist in attendance. The show runs
through Saturday, February
19.
For his first exhibition in
the United States, Theuerkauff's solo show will include paintings from several
series he has worked on in the past year: the "L'Origine du Monde" suite
(a male version of Gustave Courbet's ground-breaking painting of the same
title), the "Anonym" series, as well as the most recent "Islands"
series.
The title "One"
--obvious reference not only to a first exhibition in an American gallery and to
a solo show-- it's mainly a pointer to the number of subjects in each of his
paintings - a single human being in each canvas. The singular figure in
Theuerkauff's oeuvre is a repeated element, which together with the nudeness of
the subject, provides a window on the visual vocabulary of intimacy, and
examines the link between classical homoeroticism and contemporary art.
The subjects force us into a tension-filled position, somewhere between privacy
and voyeurism, where we are never certain of what this intimate world might
reveal. Theuerkauff invites us to look at categories such as closeness,
sensitivity, desire, lust, intimacy and passion from an entirely new
perspective, as habitual assumptions are formidably
questioned.
Each of Theuerkauff's
paintings is like an intense snapshot of a greater narration, amplified through
his photographic technique of painting similar to a film still. Many
layers of color washes and acrylic paint are sponged, smudged and sprayed onto
the canvas, until the surfaces resemble highly grained silver gelatin print,
also suggestive of the cinematographic aesthetic of film, or the pixilation of
computer-generated imagery.
The 16-part suite
"L'Origine du Monde" emerges from the previous "Anonym" Series: the view
between the legs so often found on the Internet - an invitation to chat -
becomes here a compositional principle. Contrary to Courbet's original
female nude from 1866, in Theuerkauff's work the overt image has been somewhat
blocked. Hands are placed to conceal, thus negating the pornographic
element: the view is de-centralized and diverted back to the surrounding
space.
In its seriality,
'L'Origine du Monde' simultaneously allows the individual details of the model
to come to the fore and to blur into a multitude. It also leaves us to
search the background, the lighting, and the physical anatomy for differences
and clues. In its totality 'L'Origine du Monde' poses the question:
how does the reception of a singular intimate image change in a context of
serial
inter-changeability?
Lars Theuerkauff has
exhibited recently at Cain Schulte Berlin. Born in 1968 in Lüneburg,
Germany, he lives and works as a painter, screenwriter and director in Berlin.
He studied painting at the academy of art in Munich with Robin Page and
sculpting with Cristina Iglesias. He studied film at the UdK Berlin with
Heinz
Emigholz.
Opening
reception: Friday January 27, 2011, 5:30 to 7:30 pm. The artist will
be
present.
High-resolution images available on
request.
About Cain
Schulte
Cain
Schulte Contemporary Art explores the perspectives of select international
emerging and mid-career artists working in a range of media with a focus on
painting, who bring fresh interpretative visions to their genre and work within
the context of the most contemporary art
trends.
Contact:
Marina
Cain,
Director
info@cainschulte.com
+1 415
543
1550
 |
| Anonym
(detail), 2009, acrylic on linen, 9.75 x 11.25"
|
251 Post Street, 2nd Floor,
San Francisco, CA 94108 USA
www.CainSchulte.com / info@CainSchulte / +1
415.543.1550
