The Düsseldorf artist Stefan Kürten is showing works from the new series “Sunken Relief Paintings” together with wooden sculptures by the South Tyrolean artist Gehard Demetz.

Exhibition opening on Friday, 11 April, 7 pm.

The artists will be present.

Save The Date:
28 May, 7 pm
Concert: Stefan Kürten | 12 Guitars

The Düsseldorf-based artist Stefan Kürten (born 1963) and South Tyrolean sculptor Gehard Demetz (born 1972) are presenting their work together for the first time in the exhibition “Bad Moon Rising.” Both artists are showcasing exclusively wooden works.

For Demetz, who was born in Bolzano and lives in Selva di Val Gardena, wood—specifically limewood—is virtually part of the DNA of his artistic practice. Wood carving has a long and weighty tradition in his homeland. He only turned to contemporary art after training as a “Herrgottsschnitzer” (a traditional carver of sacred figures) and now uses classical techniques to transform the material into life-sized sculptures of children that have defined his work for some time. Demetz is acutely aware of the unique properties of wood as an artistic medium. The powerful presence of his figures stems not only from the artist’s technical mastery, but also from the vitality that is inherent to the material itself.

For Kürten, working with wood—aside from occasional woodcuts—is a new departure. In this exhibition, he presents for the first time a group of works developed over the past year. The idea emerged while he was studying a discarded woodcut printing block and began working into its recesses and painting them. Captivated by the expressive potential of this technique, he refined it over the past year and created a whole series of relief paintings—his “Sunken Relief Paintings.”

In terms of subjectmatter, he remains loyal to th...

The Düsseldorf-based artist Stefan Kürten (born 1963) and South Tyrolean sculptor Gehard Demetz (born 1972) are presenting their work together for the first time in the exhibition “Bad Moon Rising.” Both artists are showcasing exclusively wooden works.

For Demetz, who was born in Bolzano and lives in Selva di Val Gardena, wood—specifically limewood—is virtually part of the DNA of his artistic practice. Wood carving has a long and weighty tradition in his homeland. He only turned to contemporary art after training as a “Herrgottsschnitzer” (a traditional carver of sacred figures) and now uses classical techniques to transform the material into life-sized sculptures of children that have defined his work for some time. Demetz is acutely aware of the unique properties of wood as an artistic medium. The powerful presence of his figures stems not only from the artist’s technical mastery, but also from the vitality that is inherent to the material itself.

For Kürten, working with wood—aside from occasional woodcuts—is a new departure. In this exhibition, he presents for the first time a group of works developed over the past year. The idea emerged while he was studying a discarded woodcut printing block and began working into its recesses and painting them. Captivated by the expressive potential of this technique, he refined it over the past year and created a whole series of relief paintings—his “Sunken Relief Paintings.”

In terms of subject matter, he remains loyal to the themes established in his painting: deserted architecture, residential houses, bungalows—scenes that appear oddly suspended in time and seem to unfold before the viewer. With these new reliefs, however, he introduces previously unseen visual moments; the images possess an almost magical sense of plasticity and depth. His use of the “invert” effect further underscores the foreboding atmosphere that also pervades his painted work.

As both artists show, wood has a unique quality that makes it appear almost “anti-modern” as an artistic material: sensuality. It engages the viewer on levels that transcend the formal or thematic aspects of the work. Perhaps this is because we humans have a particular emotional affinity for organic matter. But what does this mean for artists? The posture of cool detachment, which became entrenched in postwar art, cannot be sustained here. To work in wood is to take a risk.

Demetz and Kürten operate on—and play with—many levels in this exhibition: both artists connect craft traditions, art-historical genealogies, and the reflective machinery of contemporary discourse with their own distinct commentary on the “state of the nation.”

Kürten’s deserted architectures are comforting only at first glance. They are the empty shells of the postwar economic miracle, of Reaganomics, of the New Economy—these are the scenes we are confronted with. Whether catastrophe is about to unfold at these sites or has already occurred long ago remains uncertain. Having moved away from an earlier doctrine of depicting only entirely invented places, Kürten now allows his work to conquer very real, political spaces.

The exhibition features a particularly striking pair of works: in “Dreaming Post War”, Kürten lets the former chancellor’s bungalow in Bonn, complete with Calder sculptures and a cactus garden, dissolve into a modernist dreamscape at dusk. Next to it, in “All Things Must Pass”, he allows the Federal Chancellery in Berlin—the architectural symbol of the reunified German Republic—to disappear behind a row of fir trees that resemble more the scraggly greenery lining highways than the romanticized notion of the “German forest.” The Caspar David Friedrich-style sunset in the background gradually tips into an ominous beacon.

Demetz, too, pursues a strategy of unease with his sculptures. While his figures seem close to us—mounted on pedestals at eye level and nearly life-sized in their proportions—they are also subtly alienated. It is not only the technical distortions he employs, such as the fragmentation of the bodies (with only the faces and patches of skin fully rendered), but also the expression on their faces, their posture, and the symbolic attributes they carry—borrowed from sacred tradition—that make them appear removed from our reality despite their physical presence. They are not part of our world, and their message is not always immediately decipherable.
Two separate publications on the artists will be released to coincide with the exhibition. Interestingly, the authors of the accompanying essays each draw parallels to the work of David Lynch. The recently deceased filmmaker had a unique ability to visualize the abyss behind cozy façades and grand promises. At the same time, his films introduced a cast of (often iconic) characters who seem to exist beyond our reality, in connection with other forces.

And while "Bad Moon Rising" suggests a certain direction, Demetz and Kürten are no prophets of doom. They pose questions—about the validity of old values and certainties, and about the potential of new promises and ideals. Perhaps it’s a “sign o’ the times” that this exhibition speaks to us so directly, and so poignantly, right now.

Two exhibition publications will accompany the show, featuring texts by Kay Heymer (on Stefan Kürten) and Gregor Jansen (on Gehard Demetz).