Julian Heynen Livres

Ausstellungen /Exhibitions: 15.10.2005–12.2.2006, Mouvement, Museum Ludwig Köln und Ambiance, K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf

Das Buch erscheint anläßlich der Ausstellung „Magnus von Plessen“, die ab Dezember 2002 im K21, der Kunstsammlung im Ständehaus, in Düsseldorf gezeigt wird.

The two great polar tendencies of Gerhard Richter's art--pure abstraction and photorealism--have never been at odds with one another, and are in fact complementary aspects of Richter's total vision. Nowhere is this more stunningly evident than in Richter's latest series of paintings, completed in the summer of 1999 after a long break and presented here in book form for the first time. These works present one of the great artists of the contemporary era rediscovering the sheer pleasures of painting--Richter here revels in color, texture, and form. "Bilder 1999" moves from abstract, expressionistic shapes, to landscapes, to portraits of an infant, all the while maintaining a sense of cohesiveness and a consistency of aesthetic beauty. Reproduced in glorious color, "Gerhard Bilder 1999" also features a perceptive text by Julian Heynen.

Hans Arp (1886-1966) war ein bedeutender Akteur der Klassischen Moderne und eine Schlüsselfigur des Dadaismus und Surrealismus. Obwohl sein Spätwerk oft übersehen wird, schuf er bis zu seinem Tod weiterhin Skulpturen und Gedichte in dadaistischer Manier. Diese Publikation untersucht zwanzig Plastiken aus seiner letzten Schaffensphase (1947–1965) in seinen bevorzugten Materialien – Bronze, Marmor und Aluminium – und beleuchtet die Beziehung zwischen Form und Chance. Die figurativen Skulpturen mit ihren kurvigen, organischen Formen, die aus Naturbeobachtungen und Fantasie entstanden sind, stellen eine Fortsetzung seiner klassischen Tradition dar. Sein kreativer Prozess war von Intuition und Zufall geprägt, wobei abstrakte Gebilde auf komplexe, introvertierte Figuren treffen und ein einzigartiges visuelles Vokabular des Biomorphismus offenbaren. In einem innovativen Ansatz werden Arps Arbeiten neben den „Passstücken“ von Franz West präsentiert, um das kreative Prinzip beider Künstler zu beleuchten. Zudem wird Arps Poesie als wesentlicher Bestandteil seines Schaffens gewürdigt; vierzig Gedichte verdeutlichen, wie seine stofflichen und linguistischen Formen miteinander verwoben sind. Konzept und Text stammen von Julian Heynen.

"The American sculptor and painter Paul Thek (19331988) created objects that made him a legend. In the mid1960s, he first exhibited his ""Meat Pieces,"" relics made of wax and latex and enclosed in plexiglass boxes that were meant to recall human flesh. He also created extraordinary environments out of movable pieces from art, literature, theater, and religion. By using fragile and perishable materials, Thek emphasized the ephemeral quality of his work and hence his ownand everyone else'smortality. The Belgian artist Luc Tuymans (b. 1958) paints sparingly colored representational pictures based on preexisting photographic and video imagery. Showing objects and people that seem entirely innocuous at first glance, his paintings abstract from reality, often with somber overtones. This medium has allowed Tuymans to explore sensitive issues such as the Holocaust and 9/11. Tuymans curated the show ""Paul Thek Luc WHY?!"" at Galerie Isabella Czarnowska, Berlin, which united his own works with representative pieces he cherishes. Despite the considerable differences separating the two artists, the show hinted at close affinities between them that go far beyond superficial similarities. In this book, Luc Tuymans, the collector Harald Falckenberg, and the curator and author Julian Heynen discuss Tuymans's relationship with Thek and the role of Mike Kelley, who was instrumental in reviving critical interest in Thek's work."