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until 17.08 | #4329ARTatBerlin | Haverkampf Leistenschneider shows from 21st June 2024 the exhibition NEUE WELT by the artist Stefan Hirsig.
In a restless exchange of movement, gesture and texture, Stefan Hirsig‘s work has always questioned what painting is capable of and what abstraction can be. Integrating a rich pool of references from classical and modern painting, pop culture and today’s oversaturated media, his dynamic compositions bear witness to the hyper-connected, always-on cacophony of our present moment. Yet Hirsig’s imagery resists quick consumption. If you look long enough, you’ll discover a processual logic: marks made like chess moves, a series of calculated responses, both destructive and creative; sometimes in opposition, sometimes in dance.
In Neue Welt, Hirsig reflects on the endless cycle of global conflicts and wars that break out, subside, and escalate again without permanent resolve, keeping our world in a state of constant anxiety. The artist observes that everywhere we look, the leaders of these conflicts are almost always men. Why do so many despotic, egotistical men dominate world affairs? he asks. Is masculinity the driving force behind the world’s cycle of violence? These conflicts are not perpetuated in the name of caution or protection, but rather masculinity at its worst: aggression and overreaction: narcissistic displays of dominance.
However, it is not the male gender itself under scrutiny here, but rather the balance of masculine and feminine characteristics within every human being. Regardless of how these traits are weighted in an individual, or whether an individual does not identify with the concept of female or male at all, Hirsig proposes that the masculine traits within people are the root of global conflict, and which allow autocratic figures to rule by deepening divisions and fuelling nationalistic resentment. In order to break this cycle, we must replace these leaders with people who think and act in a more feminine way. By cultivating empathy, interweaving commonalities and setting common goals, all communities could be strengthened.
The centerpiece of the exhibition – a large format canvas entitled ‘Eskalation’ – features a sprawl of fragmented figures whose composition recalls the dense and riotous scenes of history paintings such as Poussin’s Rape of the Sabine Women, or Delacroix’s Death of Sardanaplus. Dominated by bright red and a deep, patriotic blue, the painting seems barely able to contain the flaying limbs, grasping fingers and glimpsed faces that make up its tangled mass. Eschewing a singular focal point, the painting compels the eye to join these figures in their chaotic motion, flitting between scrawled outlines and corporeal density without settling on a single detail.
In juxtaposition to this work, Hirsig presents a series of paintings with a considerably calmer, more grounded tone. Depicting abstracted female figures, these works represent Hirsig’s answer to the question of how the world can be liberated and healed from its cycle of upheavals, displacement and violence by nurturing a more feminine view of the world: choosing the creative rather than the destructive as the guiding principle of conflict resolution and replacing blind hatred with compassion. In this way, Neue Welt expresses Hirsig’s ongoing commitment to the diversity and ambivalence of human nature, in which the vibrant plurality of his compositions comes to represent a radical gesture of tolerance.
Vernissage: Friday, 21st June 2024, 6 pm – 9 pm
Exhibition dates: Friday, 21st June – Saturday, 17th August 2024
To Gallery
Image caption Title: STEFAN HIRSIG ESKALATION, 2024, Öl, Acryl auf Leinwand, 260 x 280 cm
Exhibition Stefan Hirsig – Haverkampf Leistenschneider | Contemporary Art – | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
