Hin und weg! | Martijn Schuppers, Rainer Splitt & Beat Zoderer

One of the most important questions that has always been raised in painting is the question “HOW?”. If color itself becomes the object of representation and is not revealed in mimetic forms, the inner logic of the image and thus the relationship between process, form and color become especially relevant.

As the emphasis on the color becomes stronger and the value of the form decreases, this inner structure becomes more visible. How can this relationship be established?
The artists in this exhibition mainly encounter this question through the way they produce: the flow of color determines the form, removal creates the structure and bending the image carrier makes the back visible. The images invite us to trace their origins, to 'read backwards', as it were, and to consider one's own perception. This leads to surprise, because matter often behaves differently than expected and a conflict between intuition and logic seems to have been resolved.

So what is the image and where is it?

Besides the phenomenology of perception, the three artists try to summarize presence and absence; they are all excited about the presence of color while still being skeptical. The color continues to flow or is erased by overflowing (Splitt), accumulates at the edges around a cavity (Zoderer), or is partially detached from the image carrier (Schuppers).
The title of the exhibition ‘Hin und weg’, in its dual translation possibility, emphasizes this concern: on the one hand it means “boundless fascination”, on the other hand the opposite procedure of placing and taking away (HIN-set and AWAY-take). The question of 'form' does not show itself as an illustration of something previously thought out, but as a consequence of proposition and negation. The question of “the color” achieved through these reflective steps takes on an added dimension of depth and an evocative quality that viewers find hard to avoid.

The conceptual and at the same time sensually surprising works by Martijn Schuppers (NL), Rainer Splitt (D) and Beat Zoderer (CH) have been shown and collected by countless international museums, institutions and galleries.

MPV Gallery is delighted to be able to show these 3 artists for the first time in Knokke, Belgium.