English
Deutsch
until 23.01. | #0294ARTatBerlin | cubus-m is delighted to present René Schoemakers’ second solo exhibition, titled “Dystopia/Fugen”, which will be shown from December 5, 2015.
For the first time in Berlin, René Schoemakers (*1972) shows central pieces from the series The Missing Kink (2014-2015) which have previously been exhibited in a solo show in the two public institutions, the Museumsberg Flensburg and the Lemgo City Art Gallery. The second part of the exhibition is comprised of works from the new series Dystopia, which the artist will present in its entirety at the
Kunstverein Siegen for the first time in 2016 before touring to other galleries. With Dystopia, Schoemakers continues undiminished what he started with The Missing Kink series and what Christoph Tannert, writing about the latter works, formulates thus: “If darkness had a cadence, it would be audible in the presence of René Schoemakers’ pictures. With pessimistic precision he expresses a feeling of crisis, which is very contemporary and almost unashamedly current, challenging us with occasionally evil metaphors.” The pieces shown here in Berlin represent the
transition into a new group of works for the artist. Showing the earlier series again with its links to the language of motifs that connect with the new cycle also sheds light on the title of the exhibition Dystopia/Fugen.
It is difficult to put Schoemakers’ work into the current discourses and context of contemporary figurative painting. On the one hand his technique evidences a precision and naturalism that approaches old masters but at the same time the paintings are always conceptually related to one another. They form conceptual and visual connections which totally break with classical narrative structures or representative intentions as far as naturalism is concerned. The work of the artist in projects and series which are worked on for a long time reflect the ambiguity
and complexity of the individual works. Schoemakers doesn’t just reflect upon the world in the work, but on his chosen medium itself. His examination of painting through painting is evidenced “through the synchronicity of different layers of representation in them, pictures within a picture, the presence of models, letters and text fragments; an uncanny complexity.”
(Isabel Balzer)
René Schoemakers’ paintings manage to remain strange and familiar at the same time. They are the coldly smiling vivisection of the real. It is fitting that he considers painting’s greatest asset to be a “medium of distance and distancing”.
And yet his works, in all their irreality and distance are able to touch the viewer directly. At the latest by appearance of the Horde in the work of the same name, the viewer has arrived in the present – which is, however, always the present of the pictures themselves.
(Anders Siech)
René Schoemakers (*1972 in Kleve, Germany) studied painting in the class of Peter Nagel as well as philosophy and history of art in Kiel, Germany, from 1992 to 1998. His work has been shown widely in national and international exhibitions since then and most recently in solo shows at Museumsberg Flensburg (D) and Staedtische Galerie Eichenmuellerhaus, Lemgo (D) as well as gallery presentations in Basel (CH), Hamburg (D) and Vienna (AT). Recent group shows include exhibitions at Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (D), Kunsthaus Nuremberg (D) and Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest (HU). Schoemakers was awarded many prizes and grants such as the working stipend of the Dr.-Guenther- Schirm-Stiftung, Luebeck (1999), the Imke Folkerts Prize (2009), and in 2011 the art prize of the Rosenheim-Stiftung as well as the Lucas-Cranach-Prize. He is represented with his works in private and public collections in Germany and internationally such as George Economou Collection, Athens (GR), Reinking
Collection, Hamburg (D), Kunstsammlung des Landes Schleswig-Holstein (D), Museum Angerlehner, Thalheim bei Wels (AT) and the collection of Commerzbank AG.
René Schoemakers lives and works in Kiel, Germany.
Vernissage: Friday, December 4, 2016, 7 p.m.
Exhibition period: Saturday, December 5, 2015 – Saturday, January 23, 2016
[maxbutton id=”19″]
Image caption: René Schoemakers, bootcamp/gottesacker, cubus-m
René Schoemakers – cubus-m – Kunst in Berlin ART at Berlin
