© Images by Ikki Ogata
MATTHIAS WEISCHER
KÖNIG TOKIO
23 SEPTEMBER – 15 NOVEMBER 2020
KÖNIG TOKIO presents an exhibition of new works by Matthias Weischer, on view from September 23rd through November 15th, 2020. This is Weischer’s third solo show with the gallery.
The recent paintings of Leipzig-based artist Matthias Weischer unpack like rooms within rooms. In these works, the edges of a painting act like artificial boundaries within which any number of possibilities can be realized. The current exhibition focuses on the possibilities of interiors: both as an architectural space and as an externalisation of the inwardness of consciousness.
The very concept of an “interior” implies that of an “exterior” – and Weischer revels in blurring the line between these antipodes. Three of the works on exhibit are almost entirely similar. Two rooms are visible, separated by a wall. To the right of the wall is a miniature artwork; to the left of the wall, near the ceiling, is a flourish that varies slightly across each painting. This play on difference and identity, where a single painting divides into three, is reflexively encapsulated in the miniature featured in each work. In each miniature, a woman in traditional Japanese attire is situated in more or less the same position relative to other people in a room. As an item of collage affixed to a painting, this “picture within a picture” is an extension of Weischer’s use of difference and repetition, where objects and persons don’t so much evolve as reconfigure themselves.
The other two works on exhibit showcase the range of possibilities intrinsic to Weischer’s methodology. One painting highlights absence; the other is a plenum of presence. A common motif shared by both paintings is that of a white circular orb. In the more minimal painting, this orb exists in isolation. Its meaning is open to interpretation, like a beacon for associations drawn from the viewer’s unconscious. In the other, more domestically-oriented painting, the orb is quite obviously a lamp – although rendered in such a way that it retains a kind of numinous presence. The environing objects in the room appear uncanny in their assertion of ordinariness. They radiate a furtive life that stems less from what they represent than from the makeshift design imposed on them by the artist’s hand.
© Text by Jeffrey Grunthaner
23 SEPTEMBER – 15 NOVEMBER 2020
KÖNIG TOKIO presents an exhibition of new works by Matthias Weischer, on view from September 23rd through November 15th, 2020. This is Weischer’s third solo show with the gallery.
The recent paintings of Leipzig-based artist Matthias Weischer unpack like rooms within rooms. In these works, the edges of a painting act like artificial boundaries within which any number of possibilities can be realized. The current exhibition focuses on the possibilities of interiors: both as an architectural space and as an externalisation of the inwardness of consciousness.
The very concept of an “interior” implies that of an “exterior” – and Weischer revels in blurring the line between these antipodes. Three of the works on exhibit are almost entirely similar. Two rooms are visible, separated by a wall. To the right of the wall is a miniature artwork; to the left of the wall, near the ceiling, is a flourish that varies slightly across each painting. This play on difference and identity, where a single painting divides into three, is reflexively encapsulated in the miniature featured in each work. In each miniature, a woman in traditional Japanese attire is situated in more or less the same position relative to other people in a room. As an item of collage affixed to a painting, this “picture within a picture” is an extension of Weischer’s use of difference and repetition, where objects and persons don’t so much evolve as reconfigure themselves.
The other two works on exhibit showcase the range of possibilities intrinsic to Weischer’s methodology. One painting highlights absence; the other is a plenum of presence. A common motif shared by both paintings is that of a white circular orb. In the more minimal painting, this orb exists in isolation. Its meaning is open to interpretation, like a beacon for associations drawn from the viewer’s unconscious. In the other, more domestically-oriented painting, the orb is quite obviously a lamp – although rendered in such a way that it retains a kind of numinous presence. The environing objects in the room appear uncanny in their assertion of ordinariness. They radiate a furtive life that stems less from what they represent than from the makeshift design imposed on them by the artist’s hand.
© Text by Jeffrey Grunthaner