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

Description

One of the most important questions that has always been brought up in painting is the question of “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 foremost relevant. The stronger the concentration on color, the more reduced the shape, the more important this inner structure appears. How can this relationship be established?

The artists of this exhibition meet this question mainly by the mode of their production: the flow of color defines its shape, the removal creates structure or the bending of the image
carrier shows its backside. The images call for retracing their genesis, for being “read backwards”, so to speak for contemplating one’s own perception.
This does not come without surprise, because matter often behaves differently than expected and the often supposed conflict between intuition and logic appears resolved. So what is the image and where is it? Beyond the phenomenology of perception, the three artists make the attempt to formulate presence and absence as coincident; they all are enthusiastic about the presence of color while still showing skepticism. The color continues to flow or is erased by overflowing (Splitt), accumulates at the edges around a void (Zoderer) or is partially detached from the image carrier (Schuppers).

The title of the exhibition „Hin und weg“ in its twofold possibility of translation emphasizes this concern: on the one hand, it means “boundless fascination”, on the other hand, an opposing procedure of presenting and taking away (HIN-stellen and WEG-nehmen). The question of form does not show itself as illustration of something previously thought out, but as a consequence of proposition and negation. The question of color, obtained by these reflecting steps, gains an additional dimension of depth and a suggestive quality that viewers find difficult to elude.

The conceptual and at the same time sensually surprising works of Martijn Schuppers (NL), Rainer Splitt (D) and Beat Zoderer (CH) have been shown and collected by numerous international museums, institutions and galleries. MPV Gallery is pleased to be able to show the juxtaposition of these 3 artists in Knokke, Belgium, for the first time.