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Ist Das Etwa Kunst?

2025

A Parallel Stream of Thought

The project "Is this supposed to be Art?" comprises two interwoven layers: a video performance of the same title and a series of sixteen acrylic paintings on canvas. Conceived as an inquiry into contemporary artistic practice, the exhibition explores the increasingly blurred boundaries between the artwork, the artist, and the systems of cultural valuation. Its point of departure is a conceptual reconsideration of the status of art and the artist in an era when the value of a work is often determined less by the work itself, and more by its context—its institutional framing, visibility, format, spectacle, and branding.

 

Alongside the video work, the project presents sixteen paintings of different formats, executed in acrylic on canvas. These are not visual extensions or illustrations of the video piece but rather parallel articulations within the same conceptual framework. Each painting emerges in dialogue with the questions raised by the performance. None of the paintings bear a title — an intentional choice aimed at avoiding imposed interpretation and allowing viewers to construct their own relationship with the visual content.

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#1, 2025
Media: acrylic on canvas
120 x 120 cm (47.24 x 47.24 inches)

Untitled, the paintings remain open — visual inquiries that resist being confined within fixed definitions. I see them as surfaces of exploration, the results of varying intensities of engagement with a single underlying concern: what defines art today, and what merely imitates its appearance?

In the contemporary art context, where value is often measured through conceptual complexity, referential density, or ideological alignment, this question becomes both a provocation and a critical probe, challenging conventions that have lost their relevance. The series does not seek to provide an answer; instead, it unfolds as a visual, physical, and emotional journey, from rational construction to expressive release, from graphic discipline to gestural excess.

The cycle is structured as a narrative of transformation. It begins with clean surfaces and clearly defined geometric structures that evoke clarity and calculated control. These initial works (paintings 1–3) reflect a logic of structure and intent. As the series progresses, geometry begins to dissolve, and organic, amorphous forms (paintings 4–10) emerge, with subtle figurative hints reminiscent of bodily or natural impulses. In some works, clear symbols and recognizable forms appear — signals that communicate, breaking through the abstract field with meaning. At this point, the tension between control and surrender takes on the quality of inner unrest.

Toward the end, the paintings increasingly relinquish form, entering a domain of unfiltered emotion and raw expression. Stains, gestures, and spontaneous movement culminate in the final works (paintings 11–16), which can be read as manifestations of pure energy.

This visual “evolution” sets up a confrontation between two poles of contemporary artistic practice: the sterile, often over-conceptualized art that rejects sensuality, and art that embraces emotion, expression, and imperfection. The series asks:
If all that remains is sensation — stripped of theoretical scaffolding — does it still have the right to be called art?

These paintings form a dialogue between reason and instinct, construction and intuition, art and anti-art.

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#2, 2025
Media: acrylic on canvas
80 x 100 cm (31.5 x 39.4 inches)

3_edited_edited.jpg

#3, 2025
Mixed media: acrylic, shellac, glue, and natural gravel on canvas

120 x 120 cm (47.24 x 47.24 inches)

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#4, 2025
Mixed media: acrylic, shellac, glue, and natural gravel on canvas
120 x 120 cm (47.24 x 47.24 inches)

bd7c8100-3ec8-11f0-9c0f-5b4cc4a5dbde_edited.jpg

#5, 2025
Mixed media: acrylic, shellac on canvas
100 x 80 cm (39.4 x 31.5 inches)

b3a77350-3f73-11f0-9240-1d475696365d_edited.jpg

#6, 2025
Mixed media: acrylic, shellac, glue, and natural gravel on canvas
80 x 100 cm (31.5 x 39.4 inches)

8_edited.jpg

#7, 2025

Mixed media: acrylic, shellac, glue, and natural gravel on canvas

80 x 100 cm (31.5 x 39.4 inches)

7_edited.jpg

#8, 2025
Mixed media: acrylic, shellac, glue, and natural gravel on canvas
90 x 120 cm (35.4 x 47.2 inches)

6_edited.jpg

#9, 2025
Mixed media: acrylic, shellac on canvas
90 x 120 cm (35.4 x 47.2 inches)

10_edited.jpg

#10, 2025
Mixed media: acrylic, shellac on canvas
120 x 120 cm (47.24 x 47.24 inches)

11_edited.jpg

#11, 2025
Mixed media: acrylic, shellac, glue, and natural gravel on canvas
80 x 100 cm (31.5 x 39.4 inches)

14_edited.jpg

#12, 2025

Mixed media: acrylic, shellac, glue, and natural gravel on canvas

80 x 100 cm (31.5 x 39.4 inches)

12_edited.jpg

#13, 2025

Mixed media: acrylic, shellac, glue, and natural gravel on canvas

80 x 100 cm (31.5 x 39.4 inches)

13_edited.jpg

#14, 2025
Mixed media: acrylic, shellac, glue, and natural gravel on canvas
80 x 100 cm (31.5 x 39.4 inches)

17_edited.jpg

#15, 2025
Media: acrylic on canvas
70 x 100 cm (27.6 × 39.4 inches)

d235b720-8d6e-11f0-9f11-eda147b35724_edited.jpg

#16, 2025
Mixed media: acrylic, shellac on canvas
180 x 180 cm (70.87 × 70.87 inches)

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