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until 29.10. | #3582ARTatBerlin | Galerie Michael Haas presents from 16. September 2022 the exhibition “One Step Beyond” by the artist René Wirths. Exhibition opening at the Berlin Art Week.
Fascinated by questions of philosophy and phenomenology, René Wirths creates meticulously executed still lifes of objects on a coloured background. Unlike photorealism, however, Wirths’ painting process does not take place with the aid of templates, photos and projectors, but purely as a transfer from three to two dimensions. If for Immanuel Kant the object is a separate entity from the human being and can only be experienced through perception, Edmund Husserl, a good 100 years later, approaches things by believing he can penetrate their essence through observation. His student, Martin Heidegger, however, clearly sees in this the loss of the “actuality” of an object, for it would lose its function in the sense of a tool if it were only observed and not used. René Wirths sees himself as an observer of this world of things and adds another dimension to his philosophical predecessors: that of time. For it takes weeks, sometimes months, to paint the staged everyday objects in the natural light of his studio, during which not only the lighting conditions in the studio change but also his moods. Wirths’ objects therefore depict, according to Henri Bergson, a simultaneity of the non-simultaneous. Space and time interpenetrate to form a multi-perspe tive that condenses this process as a single frontal view. Or in other words: Wirths paints things because they surround us. We live in a material world. If his earlier works against a white background still testify to a certain rigour in their pictorial structure, the dynamisation of the philosophical reflection on the world of things is also evident in Wirths’ aesthetics. The coloured backgrounds that have been gaining ground in recent years were a first step; his latest works finally dissolve the object itself. In the process of abstraction, Wirths reflects on the interpenetration of appearance and being – in terms of craftsmanship and intellect at the highest level.
Vernissage: Friday, 16. September 2022
Exhibition dates: Friday, 16. September until Saturday, 29. October 2022
To the Gallery
Caption title: René Wirths, Spray Bottle, 2022
Exhibition René Wirths – Galerie Michael Haas | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Exhibitions Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
