In case someone doesn’t know: The word “faces” is by no means an accidental plural for the common designation of the human countenance, no, but an outdated synonym for “visions” – in a rather mystical sense. Anyone who has visions has the ability to possibly see things in the future or even this world. However, the three artists who titled their joint exhibition at the Ebersberger Kunstverein “Faces” are anything but old-fashioned: although two of them “already have a seven in front”, they only show digital works. In other words, art created on the computer. Printed out in large format, however, it is in no way inferior to painting, let’s betray that.
Pit Kinzer, Ingo Lie and Daniela Kammerer are dedicated to portraits and visions.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
Daniela Kammerer, Pit Kinzer and Ingo Lie have teamed up – despite a number of personal connections, this cast is a premiere – to present portraits and artistic visions to the audience. So it’s about the outer face and the inner face, because having a face like this “means not only showing openly (on display) what everyone has, it also means what we put behind our faces, so to speak inside: dream images, hunches, pipe dreams, utopias,” writes the trio. Kammerer, Kinzer and Lie bring together three artistic positions using different techniques: painting, drawing and photography.
With every passage through the Ebersberger Galerie you enter a different, new world
The hanging concept in the Alte Brennerei gallery is extremely simple. It reads: one room per artist. The works do not hang directly next to each other, rather you enter a different world with each passage. So each of the three creative people is given space in a figurative sense. Their works can have an effect on their own – but due to their closeness, they also connect with the others. The common theme, the “faces”, is clearly evident.
It starts in the first room with Pit Kinzer. The Allgäuer is a master of quotation. In his large-format photo collages, designed on the PC, he mixes representations across time and genres. Iconic paintings meet pictures from the family album, historical photos and those that Kinzer creates himself. In turn, these are primarily figures for model railways, which the artist describes as “gladly large models” and repeatedly places them in new contexts. But he also shows portraits of these miniature people, whose heads are smaller than the head of a pin. Nevertheless, they have faces – disfigured grimaces, never meant for close-ups like this one. Kinzer, however, focuses on the little extras, even giving them fictitious names and professions. “For me, this is also socially critical work,” he says.
victim or perpetrator? Pit Kinzer even brought a screen with holes for the face. So you can slip into different roles.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
The same applies to many of his surreal tableaux, into which Kinzer repeatedly smuggles those big-time models. Even his famous Venus, borrowed from Sandro Botticelli, is usually placed next to a model railway – the figure was intended for a tiny nudist beach, Kinzer explains and laughs. Another collage unabashedly combines “The Raft of the Medusa” by Théodore Géricault with “Liberty Leading the People” by Eugène Delacroix, while another shows “The Shooting of the Insurgents” by Francisco de Goya with a picture from the family album: Kinzer’s father as a marine. In addition, there are always an almost infinite number of other details. Figures, objects, wavy water reflections. Some are black and white, others are colored, the styles range from medieval to modern. The viewer is offered teeming, funny picture puzzles – if it weren’t for the many horribly disturbing details. Death, blood and bones, victims as well as perpetrators, criminals alongside saints. Just face.
Curiosity led Ingo Lie to work creatively with Photoshop
Photographs are also the starting material for Ingo Lie from Hanover, who also uses them as set pieces for large-format collages. The artist explains that his curiosity led him to work with Photoshop. To do this, he uses images from the Internet, from photographer friends, or from his own camera, which Lie often uses to photograph film scenes. “No blockbusters, of course, but those on Arte or 3 Sat.” Three portraits from this series can be seen in Ebersberg, close-ups that look like snapshots of people lost in their own thoughts. So here again: visions.
A rainy forest, a human shadow, a lot of symmetry: Ingo Lie’s digital works are quite enigmatic.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
However, Lie’s large-format pictures are even more puzzling than Pit Kinzer’s. That’s because matching his photo snippets is virtually impossible – and Lie prefers to keep her “story” to herself. “A work goes through three phases: First it’s with me, then with me, and finally in the eye of the beholder. You shouldn’t mix them up.” However, the title would provide information, for example the “Love Pot”: A mystically shimmering bowl, in the background you can see an intimate couple, surrounded by oriental-looking ornaments. Lie also brought a self-portrait with him to Ebersberg: He stands there stark naked, with a challenging look, his feet in greenish water, with fiery yellow clouds in the background.
Depicting people – that’s what Daniela Kammerer is all about. However, not in a photorealistic way either. “Skin around the brain” is what the painter from Augsburg calls her project, which she is presenting in the old distillery. She traveled all over the world to meet and paint people. In Kolbermoor as well as in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. “I set up a studio there and then invited the neighbors to talk to hear their life stories.” Kammerer then always put the essence of it on paper from memory, trying to penetrate the interior of the portrayed with brush and paint, to capture their aura. Around 400 heads, several larger paintings, sculptures and a wall fabric were created over time – “and I can remember every single person right away”.
Some people told Daniela Kammerer so much about their relatives that picturesque family constellations were created.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
Most of what was told was very existential, threatening or sad, says Kammerer. “But you have to look at the horror and go through it to come back to the light.” And art can help with that. “Our appearance is individual, but feelings, desires and fears are universal.” Nevertheless, their more or less abstracted heads all come across as different, none is like the other. Some are designed very wildly, others rather well-behaved, some are very colorful, others rely on fewer contrasts, some show a lot of white space, others running traces of color, some are decorated with filigree, enigmatic structures. And the amazing thing is: According to the artist, most of those portrayed would have recognized themselves at exhibitions. Sure, because she painted her skin and her brain at the same time.
“Faces”: Exhibition by Daniela Kammerer, Pit Kinzer and Ingo Lie at the Kunstverein Ebersberg, Alte Brennerei in the Klosterbauhof, opening this Friday, May 6th, at 7 p.m. On Friday, May 20, at 8 p.m. Open Music by “Zeitenspringer”, on Sunday, May 29, 4 p.m. Closing event with artist talk. Open Friday 6pm to 8pm, Saturday and Sunday 2pm to 6pm.