„Schwer auszumachen“, Pirna, City hall and community center on 1.010.18
It depends in art to be eloquent silent, to address something, but not to say anything, to keep the secret, to let something sound, so that it fades out again and each comprehension then unlocks a new mystery.
In this sense I understand the works of Florian Schneider, who signs his works with the pseudonym Spandlitz and gave his local exhibition in Pirna accordingly the title "Hard to make out".
The moving tension-rich surface facture of his pictorial works creates a foil that conserves and enables an individual, intellectual as well as emotional access by the viewer gifted with imagination.
Delicate snapshots of an intense observation of the world, of female persons, define themselves from a supposed pause in the flow of life. The artist focuses on form, drawing, material, surface. His subconscious keeps digging traces into the stream of painting to create the aggregate state of "passing" that gives his works their idiosyncratic signature.
The somnambulistic certainty with which Spandlitz capitalizes on the ambiguous, the multi-layered, from the solid craftsmanship of an eye obsessed with nuance, gives rise to images of fascinating coherence and sensuality.
He succeeds in putting the aesthetic "salto mortale" on the legs of the meaningful, in not letting the refined visual offer appear as an idling of the refined. His results are always subtle lessons in fine culture, instructions for seeing, recognizing and associating. The hidden grows into the visible in delicately vibrating, oscillating light-color spaces. The artist captures metaphorically and figuratively, so to speak, the state of the BETWEEN of becoming and passing.
In the mid-90s, he created his first free sculptural works, in which he concretely used constructive and cubist compositional elements, also oriented himself to Pop Art or developed satirical genre scenes.
He is both a strategist, prescribing the color palette in his paintings, and a wondering magician and negating doubter. In an archaic dialogue of colors, shapes and textures, the infinity of thought coalesces.
"In truth, the greatness of an artist is to be measured by what he conceals in order to make us say the inexpressible itself in silence," was the conviction of the Saxon Richard Wagner, whose work was also worked on by Spandlitz.
The artistic signature insists on sensual-visual truthfulness, on the illumination of existential conditions. The fragility of existence, personal questions and doubts are of great interest. Ultimately, these are works of a deeply felt humanity, in which the artist's sense of responsibility is also expressed, not to evade his time, but also to make painful things conscious. In the center of the panel paintings are female beings who hardly turn to the viewer, who are absorbed in themselves, pensive, who are simply there, as if waiting for something. Spandlitz does not sink into the mysterious beauty, but covers the surface with abstract brush marks, sprayed or squeegeed. He erases to let something new emerge, even if it is in the viewer's mind. Each work bears a title that conveys suggestions to follow his own interpretation.
With a light hand, he draws fascinating compositions with inks on the papers, which describe our world with a lot of movement and energetic flow and sometimes make the viewer smile. Allusions are on the agenda, which have a wonderful radiance, funny, poetic, mysterious and collosal refreshing.
Take a walk with your eyes and decipher the fragments of life that encircle spaces, somewhere in the nowhere, spaces of passions, of melancholy, spaces where we are somehow at home, where the erosion of our life, of our time takes place, spaces where loss and gain are accumulated.
In the beginning there is seeing. And then the visible signs connect with one's own ideas and the "hard to make out" gets a sense.
Karin Weber, gallerist and art scientist
"VERSUCHSWEISHEITEN - an ironic journey into everyday life".
"Irony [...] is the grain of salt by which what is served up becomes edible in the first place." Thomas Mann wrote down this sentence in his 1939 novel Lotte in Weimar. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is said to have said it. Fourteen years later, Thomas Mann expressed himself as follows in a radio discussion: "A very strange utterance. One could conclude from it that Goethe almost makes irony coincide with the principle of the artistic in general. [...] Objectivity is irony - and the epic spirit of art; one could address it as the spirit of irony." According to Thomas Mann, irony does not contradict the principle of objectivity, according to German scholar Bernd W. Seiler, insofar as it extends in its most comprehensive form to schlechthin alles, is distance from everything. Irony is "a view that cheerfully encompasses the whole.
The sculptor Florian Schneider alias Spandlitz uses a sensitive, partly humorous, partly enigmatic irony that knows neither mockery nor scorn, neither cynicism nor sarcasm. An irony that is, in the sense of Thomas Mann, "a serene view encompassing the whole". Spandlitz is primarily concerned with entertainment. About making us as viewers smile with his works.
As with the 2014 sculpture "Cup of Coffee," for example. As a promotional motif for this exhibition, the upturned cup may already have caught the eye. It seems to float freely in space. Slightly tilted, a stream of coffee pours out of it onto the pedestal below. Only at second glance is another puddle of coffee visible at the base of the pedestal. The illusion of the floating coffee cup captivates us as viewers, conjures a smile on our lips. But, how is it possible that the "cup of coffee" is in the air? Questions about the technique and materiality force themselves involuntarily ... Nothing more than a standard porcelain cup, a wooden base, a metal rod, putty, glue and lacquer paint were needed to conjure up the illusion. A seemingly perfect illusion that does not expose itself as such.
Spandlitz's works, however, are not solely about entertainment, as one might think at first glance. For all their humor, they are based on a great seriousness.
In the deception, we as viewers are encouraged to engage in a multifaceted and challenging contemplation that leads to realization. Only when we have unmasked the illusion do we begin to see. Do we begin to consciously perceive the form, the structure, the lines, the material and discover behind the patina a humor that looks at systems with a wink and seriously at the same time, tracing language, logic, society, everyday life and the system of art.
The exhibition "Versuchsweisheiten" reflects Spandlitz the whole range of artistic development of the past 13 years. Versatile and versatile, he creates sculptures and sculptures that sometimes seem heavy, sometimes are characterized by simple elegance, sometimes static, sometimes in motion. And yet almost all works have one thing in common: they are created from parts and disintegrate into parts again. Sometimes elements are omitted or deliberately emphasized. The collage-like finding of form becomes the central formal component of the artistic creative process, which is both associative and intuitive. In the process, Spandlitz usually discards the original concept in order to implement a new idea. This principle ultimately also manifests itself in the play with light and shadow, through which the dramaturgy of the shadow effect is predetermined and spatiality is created.
A closer look at the 53 sculptural works on display reveals a development from abstract forms with soft and swaying outlines to figuration. Initially still working with concrete, Spandlitz increasingly worked in wood and with metal, recently also in bronze. Over time, color was also added as a means of entertainment. Characteristic of Spandlitz is not only the broad palette of his formal language, s but above all his delight in experimenting with unusual materials such as apple cores and coffee grounds. His cheerful works, marked by irony and irritation, are meant to entertain. "Humor is the direct line to the heart of visitors" the artist is convinced.
But not everyone understands humor or irony, they do not give the same to everyone, and what wants to be humorous or ironic does not work for everyone. Perhaps this is also the reason why so few artists, especially in sculpture, have so far devoted themselves to this métier ... This is actually regrettable, because humor and irony are entertaining, political, stimulate thought, change, astonish and force laughter. Spandlitz finds personal expression in the various facets of humor and irony. As a means of play and questioning, analysis or criticism, we as viewers encounter it. Titles such as "Welt aus den Fugen" or "Schräg Vogel" also prove to be plays on language and words that amusingly refer to what is depicted.
Nevertheless, humor and irony can also be found in the play with the viewer's expectations, the artist's expectations of himself, as a play with the formal means of art and its contents. Time and again, art historical references can be found in Spandlitz's work, which run through the exhibition like ironic footnotes:
The sculpture titled "Cubic Construct" from 2005, for example. As one of the earliest works in the exhibition, it is still entirely devoted to abstract formal language. Basic geometric shapes such as small spheres or larger hemispheres and quarters are stacked on top of each other like towers. With its abstract, simple forms, Spandlitz's sculpture "Cubic Construct" is reminiscent of the concrete art of Bauhaus student Max Bill. For the Swiss artist Max Bill, since the 1930s, it was fundamentally about the visualization of mathematical content, about a mathematical way of thinking in art. However, he did not conceive of mathematics as exact and static, but as an organic and animated system. "Concretion is the objectification of something that was previously not visible, not tangibly present. Making abstract ideas, relationships, thoughts visible, that is concretion," according to Max Bill. By cutting, twisting and reassembling the original form, compositions were created as a realization of ideas and concept. We find this principle repeatedly in Spandlitz's early works as well. An example is the sculpture "Welt aus den Fugen" from 2002. From a sphere of plaster divided into quarters along the central axis, the individual elements are pulled out in different ways, creating additional surfaces. This spherical equivalent strives apart and yet is firmly connected.
The sculpture "Head" made of red Main sandstone, created in 2004, also picks up on art historical references. The flat profile of what is probably a male figure is reminiscent in its outlines of the steel sculptures of the artist Horst Antes, who was born in Heppenheim in 1936. He is considered a co-founder of a new figurative art in Germany at the end of the 1950s. Characteristic of Horst Antes is the return to the figurative form, his trademark are the "cephalopods" invented by him - a cheerfully ironic art figure that has no neck, little chest and belly, head and feet seem to merge into one. "Objects are projections from within, from man," is how the artist explained the deformity and reducibility of man to a flat form in 1970.
Spandlitz's examination of various styles, epochs and artistic personalities of the 20th century can be continued, but will only be hinted at here: In addition to the cubist reduction of an object to geometric figures in order to depict different perspectives on one and the same object, the parallels to the elongated, thin figures of the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti with their furrowed, roughened surfaces should also be mentioned. Dresden's art history is also reflected in Spandlitz's work: the shimmering color structures of artists Gerda Lepke and Max Uhlig find their counterpart in the fragmentary constructions made of maple wood - such as in the larger-than-life sculpture "Erscheinung" from 2012. With his works, Spandlitz explores art historical models and reinterprets them.
Upon entering the exhibition, in addition to the advertising motif of the coffee cup, the sculpture "Banana Total" from 2014 also caught the eye. On a pedestal, six bananas lie fanned out on top of each other like in the game of skill Mikado, leaning against each other or wedged into each other without swaying. They form a construct that, fragile as it may seem at first glance, is in balance.
It was 100 years ago that the French-American artist Marcel Duchamp declared a "bicycle wheel," an industrially manufactured wire rack for drying bottles, and a commercial urinal signed "R. Mutt" from a sanitary store to be art. Marcel Duchamp thus radically challenged the traditional concept of art. With his so-called "ready-mades," a work of art made from found everyday objects or waste, Marcel Duchamp established "the idea of interaction between art and everyday life." Half a century later, artists like Andy Warhol revisited the "found object" as a central element of their art, elevating everyday objects to an art form. Ever since Pop Art made the world of consumption its theme, it has been impossible to imagine art without motifs such as the banana.
With his sculpture "Banana Total," Spandlitz takes up this art-historical tradition, at the same time ironically questioning traditional visual habits by exposing his work to deconstructive processes. In doing so, he uncovers layers and reassembles them. Elements are left out, parts are missing. By means of this collage-like form-finding, Spandlitz demonstrates the balance between the pictorial representation of art and the object character of the possible forms. The artist creates an atmospherically dense narrative that gives the viewer the illusion that the banana ensemble is real enough to bite into. Thereby, the coincidence of everyday reality and mental imagination causes the irony - an irony of everyday life.
In addition to Spandlitz's sculptural works, the exhibition presents 20 works on paper. As diverse and multifaceted are the sculptures and sculptures of the artist, as different are his drawings in ink, charcoal and with graphite. Different styles meet each other. One can discover sheets with expressive - gestrigem brushstroke, which thrown fleetingly, but the characteristic sharply captured - as well as drawings in which light and shadow - contrasts and constructive elements dominate. Spandlitz's graphic works enter into a symbiosis with his sculptural ones.
With an open and "cheerful view of the whole", to close the bow to Thomas Mann, you will encounter works that make you smile, but also make you think. What characterizes humor and irony? How do they express themselves in art? But beware: illusion is omnipresent ...
Anna Schinzel, art historian
Sighting of the form, Art Gallery at WH, 12.4.13
together with Frank .K. Richter
Two young artists from dresden analyze new ways
Dr.Jördis Lademann
In our case here, things are such that the artist seeks to fathom the mechanisms behind the form. And by alienating them, he wants to make them more obvious.
A certain playfulness is already expressed in the adoption of his "artist's name".
Was this a whim or a confession ?
I think it's apt overall: it has something mischievous about it and makes you think of frames, i.e. wooden planks, and wood has become an important material for you, especially in recent years.
But also for you, also for Spandlitz, a serious view of the form is an indispensable prerequisite for the work. In the appropriate shorthand, this means:
Sifting, weighting, fragmenting, balancing, constructing, regrouping.
With these work steps, plastic visual habits are questioned. In addition, unusual materials provide further surprises.
That Spandlitz seeks to fathom the mechanisms behind the forms and, by alienating them, wants to make them more obvious, I already said at the beginning.
Nevertheless, he does not see himself as an abstract or constructivist artist. Like most classical sculptors, he professes the human figure as the most important object of sculptural design. He is particularly fascinated by the realative symmetry of the physique.
"Is our countenance a coincidence?" he asks himself.
He is "interested in the blurriness, the ambiguity of a human construction. We have to understand," he says, "that everything is formed from parts and at some point disintegrates into the same. Traces of wear and morbidities are part of my observation, they adhere to everything. They describe the process of aging, the expression of decay."
The melancholic "memento mori", however, is nevertheless not his thing. He wants to make it visible, as he says himself, "in an entertaining to spectacular way."
Thus he lets the "forest man" strive slenderly upwards out of all kinds of small maple woods, somewhat woodenly, somewhat clumsily, completely without paying special attention to the highlights of the human anatomy, the joints, the muscle packages or even the individual facial features. And yet he has everything he needs, the forest man.
The "apparition", on the other hand, keeps rather low profile, this is well shown here, in the complete whiteness in front of the white wall and seems like camouflage paint, but also the very slightly receding posture of the upper body, the idle hanging down of the arms, the directionless standing motif of the legs and the perplexed looking at oneself in front of the feet, give the figure an aimless, perhaps even helpless character.
Quite different is the impetus of the "Machine Man", who is indeed smaller, but radiates all the more joy of movement. Doesn't that make you want to try and turn the crank?
But - no - no - Spandlitz is not a mechanic, he is only concerned with the form that triggers such activation.
The other figures made of plaster, concrete and sandstone, the "Welt aus den Fugen", the "Disperson" and the "Maschine" definitely show traits of cubist sculpture, whose realm is neither the domain of science nor of the verbal, but solely of the pictorial.
The small "Composition of 12 Spheres", which Mrs. Petrow has had here for some time, also shows a cubistically dissected multi-viewedness.
Basic substance of the modeling mass is there, by the way, as with the cheeky master with dog group "Unter den Linden": coffee grounds!
(Of course, the assumption is obvious that the Schneider family - or just Spandlitz alone - regularly produces larger quantities of this substrate.
There it is nevertheless a nice idea to lead it again - and hopefully "lastingly" - back into the cycle of the sculptor's daily business).
Activity, mental as well as physical, is certainly exuded by the works in the back rooms: the not at all wooden-looking, pirouette-turning "Woman in Blue", flanked by the "Ballerina" and an athlete, just like the "False Serpent" and the three small bronzes, in the back on the dresser.
Full of harmony and inner serenity, in beautifully linear, well-rounded forms, the sandstone "Soul" captures all this well-coordinated agitation.
"Art is spiritual nourishment." says Spandlitz: "Subsequent generations will measure us by what we leave them, that is the artist's RESPONSIBILITY."
Dr. Jördis Lademann. Art critic
