Geneva - Contemporary Art

Copper wall sculpture carve. The dimension are the one of the wooden plate.

Untitled, 300 x 190 cm, oil on canvas, 2010. Yury Kharchenko is a Russian German artist. He lives and works in Berlin. From 2004-2008 he studied at the famous Kunstakademie Düsseldorf by Markus Lüpertz and Siegfried Anzinger and graduated with master of fine arts and Diploma. From 2011-2012 he was in a PhD programme at the University of Potsdam and did a research about the art philosophy in postmodern times influenced by Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas. His works are part of important museum collections like Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, State Collection Düsseldorf, Kunst aus NRW Aachen and Felix Nussbaum Haus Osnabrück. Yury Kharchenko’s works can make one forget that such a thing as pop art and post modernism ever existed. His pictures are completely free of cynicism, and there is nothing second-hand about them. His painting is not that of an epigone. They focus on the formal and emotional possibilities of painting. They are both non-representational, pure visual phenomena like sounds and representational, simple shapes such as the houses, which form the backbone of the cycle, or as the silhouettes of figures hidden in the thickets and scrub of the dark lattice structure of these pictorial spaces. Yury Kharchenko’s paintings are delightful in their texture and their sense of color, stimulating the senses and arousing strong feelings in the viewer. In order to endure the turbulence on this journey within the picture and to domesticate the overwhelming flood of free forms and fleeing forces, Kharchenko has provided his recent works with a frame. For this purpose he selects the archetype of a house in order to, as he says, "hold the painting together" with this shape. As Kharchenko says, "paintings must also take on shape. Thus, this superordinate structure is like a metaphorical roof which delimits and holds together the representation of painting and is not a painted representation of a house! This taming of an undirected drive by way of an organizing form reflects the duality of human nature, which Friedrich Nietzsche described with the principles of the Apollonian and Dionysian. Accordingly the Apollonian strives for form and shape, while the Dionysian follows the intoxication and the creative drive that breaks all form. By using the house, although a symbol of protection and security, Kharchenko does not attempt to abolish this conflict, which is inherent in any creative work, but rather, to endure it and, above all, to visualize it through painting. Nevertheless, a problem arises of spectator subjectivity. Namely, intuiting momentarily the physical properties and emotional directives of a work differs categorically from shaping and impressing them with one’s own hands: the role of seer is necessarily passive in relation to that of maker. However, the starting point of an individual confronting the concrete work coheres with Marx’s preferred hermeneutic. In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. The individual who addresses the artwork effects his own activity, turning himself into a person who thinks deeper about the design before him or walks away. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. 2015. Bonnefanten, Roermond, NL. Mirta Demare Gallery, Rotterdam. Jagla Ausstellungsraum, Cologne. Ober Gallery, Kent, CT, USA. 2014. Clara Maria Sels Gallery, Düsseldorf. Ilya Kabakov, Yury Kharchenko, Panamarenko, Alexander Braun. Bespoke, Düsseldorf. With Barbara Friedman, Nicola Stäglich. Kunstverein Dillingen with Thomas Huber. Ober Gallery, Kent, CT, USA with Jasper Johns, AR Penck...

House of blue, 160 x 130 cm, oil on canvas, 2013. Yury Kharchenko is a Russian German artist. He lives and works in Berlin. From 2004-2008 he studied at the famous Kunstakademie Düsseldorf by Markus Lüpertz and Siegfried Anzinger and graduated with master of fine arts and Diploma. From 2011-2012 he was in a PhD programme at the University of Potsdam and did a research about the art philosophy in postmodern times influenced by Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas. His works are part of important museum collections like Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, State Collection Düsseldorf, Kunst aus NRW Aachen and Felix Nussbaum Haus Osnabrück. Yury Kharchenko’s works can make one forget that such a thing as pop art and post modernism ever existed. His pictures are completely free of cynicism, and there is nothing second-hand about them. His painting is not that of an epigone. They focus on the formal and emotional possibilities of painting. They are both non-representational, pure visual phenomena like sounds and representational, simple shapes such as the houses, which form the backbone of the cycle, or as the silhouettes of figures hidden in the thickets and scrub of the dark lattice structure of these pictorial spaces. Yury Kharchenko’s paintings are delightful in their texture and their sense of color, stimulating the senses and arousing strong feelings in the viewer. In order to endure the turbulence on this journey within the picture and to domesticate the overwhelming flood of free forms and fleeing forces, Kharchenko has provided his recent works with a frame. For this purpose he selects the archetype of a house in order to, as he says, "hold the painting together" with this shape. As Kharchenko says, "paintings must also take on shape. Thus, this superordinate structure is like a metaphorical roof which delimits and holds together the representation of painting and is not a painted representation of a house! This taming of an undirected drive by way of an organizing form reflects the duality of human nature, which Friedrich Nietzsche described with the principles of the Apollonian and Dionysian. Accordingly the Apollonian strives for form and shape, while the Dionysian follows the intoxication and the creative drive that breaks all form. By using the house, although a symbol of protection and security, Kharchenko does not attempt to abolish this conflict, which is inherent in any creative work, but rather, to endure it and, above all, to visualize it through painting. Nevertheless, a problem arises of spectator subjectivity. Namely, intuiting momentarily the physical properties and emotional directives of a work differs categorically from shaping and impressing them with one’s own hands: the role of seer is necessarily passive in relation to that of maker. However, the starting point of an individual confronting the concrete work coheres with Marx’s preferred hermeneutic. In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. The individual who addresses the artwork effects his own activity, turning himself into a person who thinks deeper about the design before him or walks away. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. 2015. Bonnefanten, Roermond, NL. Mirta Demare Gallery, Rotterdam. Jagla Ausstellungsraum, Cologne. Ober Gallery, Kent, CT, USA. 2014. Clara Maria Sels Gallery, Düsseldorf. Ilya Kabakov, Yury Kharchenko, Panamarenko, Alexander Braun. Bespoke, Düsseldorf. With Barbara Friedman, Nicola Stäglich. Kunstverein Dillingen with Thomas Huber. Ober Gallery, Kent, CT, USA with Jasper Johns, AR Penck...

It is no easy task to describe the extremely heterogeneous work of Becker Schmitz in a few brief sentences. First of all, it is not possible to say clearly whether the work of the German-based artist is to be classified as “painting”, “installation” or “site-specific intervention”. He takes great pleasure in hopping from one genre to the next and refuses all one-dimensional, constricting categorizations. Nevertheless, the various components of his protean oeuvre are all charged with the same energy, with the same striking readiness to expand with force into three-dimensional space. When he paints, Becker Schmitz creates hallucinatory pictures full of spectral beauty, pictures with venomously garish colours in front of bleak and gloomy backgrounds, pictures with weighty materiality and an almost sculptural texture, pictures whose archetypical motifs (house, tree, horse) oscillate in a precarious balance between a pure experience of painting and narratives full of atmosphere. It is at all times uncertain whether the motifs emerge out of the painting surface or, on the contrary, whether they are themselves bearers of surface effects. When he works with sculptural means, Becker Schmitz treats the respective space in a way that is highly particular. With the simplest of materials – found wooden batons, adhesive tape – he builds dynamic structures, which he wedges between the walls and ceilings, or he fills the exhibition space with inflatable, cumbersome modules, which force the viewer to rethink classical spatial perception. His minimal or obsessive interventions make use of an invasive strategy, which underscores the characteristics of the space and – because they are so obtrusive – simultaneously causes these to disappear altogether. *1980 born in Moers, Germany. Study of painting and interdisciplinary art with Wolfgang Hambrecht Bernd Mechler Stephan Paul Schneider free Academy for applied arts, Essen (freie Akademie der bildenden Künste, Essen) 2015 free Academy for applied arts / Univerity for applied arts, Essen Lecturer for interdisciplinary art AWARDS 2012 nominated for the “Space Art Award” - “artbahn Förderpreis” Rheinbahn Düsseldorf 2010-2013 Studio grant from the Ludwig-Galerie Schloss Oberhausen and the City of Oberhausen 2010 Masterstudent of Wolfgang Hambrecht and Stephan-Paul Schneider 2007-2010 Studio grant from the City of Oberhausen 2008-2010 Scholarship from the Freien Akademie der bildenden Künste, Essen (fadbk) SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2015 Galerie Philia Galerie Ikosaeder, Essen (upcoming) 2014 LAVATION Galerie Börgmann - Philipps-Universität Marburg - „Blow Up“ at Traumzeitfestival Landschaftspark Duisburg Nord 2013 „Electric_ID is Killing the Darkness“ Galerie Schabadke, Duisburg - „GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG“ fadbkHBK,Essen - „AGGREGAT/CONGREGAT“ The Golden Tube Philipps-Universität Marburg2012 „Blattschuss“ Galerie Börgmann, Krefeld Katalog - „QUIET RIOT“ feat. Lea Carla Diestelhorst and Pascal Bruns, Duisburger Kunstverein - „RABBIT HOLE“, Junges Museum, Bottrop - HIDDEN CURRICULUM, feat. Lea-Carla Diestelhorst - Galerie Künstlerhaus Bergedorf, Hamburg 2011 „PERMAFROST“ Im Freien Kunst Territorium, Bochum 2010 „800 METER INTENSIV“, Site-specific installation, Kreuzkirche in Duisburg-Marxloh, Duisburg - „ROROROBOTER“ Kontorhaus Duisburg Innenhafen, Duisburg GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2015 „Green City“ (upcoming) Ludwiggalerie Schloss Oberhausen - „abstract strategies“ Galerie Schütte in den Scheid´schen Hallen, Essen - „Die Grosse Kunstausstellung NRW“ Museum Kunstpalast 2014 „Alles Auf Anfang“ Kunsthaus Oberhausen - „Splash Mag Stage“ at Berlin Art Festival - „Ars Dilletanti“ Temporäre Kunstsammlung, Augsburg - „abstract strategies“ Galerie Beskope, Düsseldorf - „Black RestWhite Noise“ Galerie Module, Dresden - conturbanaries Art Fair, Berlin Galerie Schaufenster by Jan Kage - „Die Grosse Kunstausstellung NRW“ Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf - stromaufwärts-Junge Positionen, Ludwiggalerie, Schloss Oberhausen2013 Contemporary Art Ruhr – Art Fair Zeche Zollverein, Essen - Kunstsammlung Ulbricht Kreer-Ulbricht, Städische Galerie, Bottrop - „Ars Dilettanti“, Augsburg Temporäre Kunstsammlung, Augsburg - „False Optimism“ Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland 2012 INTERVALL 01, Galerie Börgmann, Krefeld - “Space Art Award” New Yorker Hotel...

Snowy house, 140 x 120cm, oil on canvas, 2013 Yury Kharchenko is a Russian German artist. He lives and works in Berlin. From 2004-2008 he studied at the famous Kunstakademie Düsseldorf by Markus Lüpertz and Siegfried Anzinger and graduated with master of fine arts and Diploma. From 2011-2012 he was in a PhD programme at the University of Potsdam and did a research about the art philosophy in postmodern times influenced by Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas. His works are part of important museum collections like Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, State Collection Düsseldorf, Kunst aus NRW Aachen and Felix Nussbaum Haus Osnabrück. Yury Kharchenko’s works can make one forget that such a thing as pop art and post modernism ever existed. His pictures are completely free of cynicism and there is nothing second-hand about them. His painting is not that of an epigone. They focus on the formal and emotional possibilities of painting. They are both non-representational, pure visual phenomena like sounds and representational, simple shapes such as the houses, which form the backbone of the cycle, or as the silhouettes of figures hidden in the thickets and scrub of the dark lattice structure of these pictorial spaces. Yury Kharchenko’s paintings are delightful in their texture and their sense of color, stimulating the senses and arousing strong feelings in the viewer. In order to endure the turbulence on this journey within the picture and to domesticate the overwhelming flood of free forms and fleeing forces, Kharchenko has provided his recent works with a frame. For this purpose he selects the archetype of a house in order to, as he says, "hold the painting together" with this shape. As Kharchenko says, "paintings must also take on shape. Thus, this superordinate structure is like a metaphorical roof which delimits and holds together the representation of painting and is not a painted representation of a house! This taming of an undirected drive by way of an organizing form reflects the duality of human nature, which Friedrich Nietzsche described with the principles of the Apollonian and Dionysian. Accordingly the Apollonian strives for form and shape, while the Dionysian follows the intoxication and the creative drive that breaks all form. By using the house, although a symbol of protection and security, Kharchenko does not attempt to abolish this conflict, which is inherent in any creative work, but rather, to endure it and, above all, to visualize it through painting. Nevertheless, a problem arises of spectator subjectivity. Namely, intuiting momentarily the physical properties and emotional directives of a work differs categorically from shaping and impressing them with one’s own hands: the role of seer is necessarily passive in relation to that of maker. However, the starting point of an individual confronting the concrete work coheres with Marx’s preferred hermeneutic. In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. The individual who addresses the artwork effects his own activity, turning himself into a person who thinks deeper about the design before him or walks away. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. 2015. Bonnefanten, Roermond, NL. Mirta Demare Gallery, Rotterdam. Jagla Ausstellungsraum, Cologne. Ober Gallery, Kent, CT, USA. 2014. Clara Maria Sels Gallery, Düsseldorf. Ilya Kabakov, Yury Kharchenko, Panamarenko, Alexander Braun. Bespoke, Düsseldorf. With Barbara Friedman, Nicola Staglich. Kunstverein Dillingen with Thomas Huber. Ober Gallery, Kent, CT, USA with Jasper Johns, AR Penck...