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Until 01.10.| #3565ARTatBerlin | Laura Mars Gallery presents the exhibition Motivation Show by the artist Frank Maier from 20 August 2022 (opening: 19.08.).
Juggling virtuosically with “pure” complexes of forms, Frank Maier draws upon the inventory of abstraction. Yet his strongly colored paintings, characterized by densely constructed arrangements of lines and planes, are not abstract. Rather, they refer to – as Kazimir Malevich once put it – the “truth of non-objective being beneath the surface of phenomena. “Frank Maier’s paintings “represent” situations, moments, or correlations on the verge of new constellations. The composition of the paintings entails, as it were, a social dynamic. “The artist presents us with individual snippets of his perception of life as if they were frozen and under a spotlight. Without further ado, the pictorial elements involved become characters, soon turning into props, forming a ‘scenery.'” (Barbara Buchmaier) Individual elements of these sceneries even take on representational forms. A recurring motif, for instance, is that of the “crab” – sometimes depicted “completely,” sometimes fragmentarily. Such motifs evoke different associations and connotations, oscillating between organism and machine, radiating autonomy. “Ego capsules” is the term Frank Maier uses to describe the special circular forms that also appear in his paintings. Seemingly rotating, these forms look like compact ball bearings that – perhaps originating from other worlds – have “landed” in the pictorial spaces.
Frank Maier, Guy, 2021, acryl on canvas, 127,5 x 79,5 x 8 cm
copyright by the artist, courtesy Laura Mars Gallery
The paintings themselves seem similarly autonomous, with ribbon-like enclosures that build up at the edges – and are usually extended beyond the pictorial space by frame laths: fanned-out interfaces to the outside world. “In contrast to the rather passive qualities of a picture – that is, being at rest in itself, ‘contemplative’ and fully shaped – the intention is to emphasize an active relationship, namely that between the picture and those who look at it,” says Frank Maier, describing one aspect of his painting. The quote is from the insightful conversation Bernhart Schwenk held with the artist for the Motivation Book, which was produced on the occasion of the exhibition at Laura Mars Gallery and published by Fantôme Verlag.
Opening: Friday, 19. August 2022 ab 7:00 p.m.
Exhibition dates: Saturday, 20. August until Saturday, 01. October 2022
to the gallery
Exhibition Motivation Show – Laura Mars Gallery | Zeitgenössische Kunst Berlin | Contemporary Art | Exhibitions Galerien | ART at Berlin
