5 November - 23 December 2023
Ingmar Bruhn - Reinhard Buch, Of Flying Dogs and Other Creatures
Left: Reinhard Buch, Tibeter (2003), bronze, 30 x 16 x 33 cm
Right: Ingmar Bruhn, untitled (2017), oil on cotton, 95 x 110 cm
Right: Ingmar Bruhn, untitled (2017), oil on cotton, 95 x 110 cm
Archaic-looking animal and human bodies in rubber or bronze meet painted and drawn animals, symbolic and commonly known, such as the rooster or the roaring stag. Since time immemorial, humans have been recording their observations of the animal world around them, as we know from cave paintings, for instance. Art history tells us that animals have been carrying moral, social or fantastic associations for ages.
When painting animals, Ingmar Bruhn applies oil paint in thick layers onto the canvas, in a vigorous and gestural manner, often in earthy tones. The animals fill the entire pictorial space and they emerge from the depth of the painting - which makes them anything but superficial. The current exhibition also includes charcoal drawings created in a quick, generous and concentrated manner.
In his bronze series entitled Gymnastics, Reinhard Buch plays with the idea of setting a Tibetan-inspired figure in motion by changing its posture or the position of its legs. With the ‘flying dog’ from the series The Transformation of the Chinese Dog, the artist imaginatively explores the genesis of a small, ancient dog figure and illustrates the inner and outer views as the creature develops. It shows the sculptor's typical enjoyment at shaping objects, also palpable in his rubber animals.
In both Ingmar Bruhn's paintings and Reinhard Buch's sculptures, we discover familiar figures reinterpreted. Buch’s almost abstract looking sculptures on the one hand, and Bruhn’s paintings on canvas on the other, make for a radical shift away from sometimes romanticised, almost iconographic animal representations, as we know them from art history. At the same time, these works are proof of the constant fascination of both artists with art history’s archetypes and the nature that surrounds us.
Ingmar Bruhn was born in Wismar (Germany), in 1967. From 1995 until 2001, he studied at the HdK Berlin (Academy of Arts) and, in 2000, was granted a scholarship to study at the Hunter College (New York). He was a meisterschüler of Prof. Marwan. From 2020 until 2022, he was an interim professor at the Dresden University of Fine Arts. Ingmar Bruhn, who works in Dambeck (Northern Mecklenburg), had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Germany and in other countries, and many of his works are in private and public collections.
“What matters to me, is the implementation, in my work, of purely pictorial ideas as well as elements from art history and contemporary history.” (Ingmar Bruhn)
Reinhard Buch was born in Erfurt (Germany) in 1954, then grew up in Warnemünde, on the Baltic coast. From 1975 until 1981, he studied sculpture at the Weissensee Academy of Art (Berlin), then at the Budapest Academy of Arts. In 1981, he started working as an independent sculptor in Hirschburg, where he built a large atelier in 1998 and started the Black Box Galerie in 2013. Between 1985 and 2004, Reinhard Buch took on several teaching assignments: at the School for Applied Arts in Heiligendamm, the Weissensee Academy of Art and the Ernst Moritz Arndt University (Greifswald). He made study trips to Italy, France, Greece, Chile and Argentina. Since 1991, he has exhibited both nationally and internationally in solo and group exhibitions. He was awarded a.o. the Gustav Weidanz Prize for Sculpture from the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design (Halle) and was successful in a number of competitions at regional and national level. Many of if his works are now in the public space.
“Reinhard Buch's artistic attitude includes a tendency towards technical engineering perfection. For him, technical perfection is at least a prerequisite for sensuous inspiration.” (Jens Semrau)