Bendix Harms: Houses of Content
The fifth exhibition by German artist Bendix Harms at Anton Kern Gallery presents sixteen new paintings. Painted over the last year and a half in his studio in 脴sterf忙lden, the artist鈥檚 farm in the north of Denmark, they are the outcome of the life shared with his wife Mari, Mamon the cat, and a wide array of birds that settle around the farm. The exhibition will run through June 26 and is accompanied by a new 100-page catalog chronicling six exhibitions and including a dedication-poem by fellow painter Joe Bradley.
Sixteen paintings equal sixteen Houses of Content. Harms could not be clearer about how to read his work. The paintings house the content, and the content determines the outcome of the paintings. They are the inevitable consequence of his engagement and, most of all, his close relationship with the subjects he paints. Calling himself a contentist Harms explains: 鈥淚 am 1000% convinced that personal experiences will create strong relationships to the painted subjects. And from this moment on the motif begins to talk to the artist and the artist has to deliver adequate and art historically relevant answers, because at the end of an artist鈥檚 life only one thing matters: the difference of the own work in relation to history.鈥�
In an almost Warholian manner, yet completely un-dandy-ish, Harms withdraws from the role of the artist as genius inventor. Rather, he sees himself as an agent or intermediary between his subjects鈥� actions, the plays continuously acted out in front of his eyes, and the paintings to be painted. As if he was taking precise orders from his motif: do it this way! 脴sterf忙lden takes on the role of the factory, birds and cats are the Superstars, the artist becomes their extension, or as Harms put it 鈥渁n employee of my subjects.鈥�
During the act of painting, the motif, rather than the artist, is the decision-maker. Method and content collapse into one! There is no distinction between form and content, and herein lies the extravagance and unmistakable character of Harms鈥� painting.
Recommended for you
The fifth exhibition by German artist Bendix Harms at Anton Kern Gallery presents sixteen new paintings. Painted over the last year and a half in his studio in 脴sterf忙lden, the artist鈥檚 farm in the north of Denmark, they are the outcome of the life shared with his wife Mari, Mamon the cat, and a wide array of birds that settle around the farm. The exhibition will run through June 26 and is accompanied by a new 100-page catalog chronicling six exhibitions and including a dedication-poem by fellow painter Joe Bradley.
Sixteen paintings equal sixteen Houses of Content. Harms could not be clearer about how to read his work. The paintings house the content, and the content determines the outcome of the paintings. They are the inevitable consequence of his engagement and, most of all, his close relationship with the subjects he paints. Calling himself a contentist Harms explains: 鈥淚 am 1000% convinced that personal experiences will create strong relationships to the painted subjects. And from this moment on the motif begins to talk to the artist and the artist has to deliver adequate and art historically relevant answers, because at the end of an artist鈥檚 life only one thing matters: the difference of the own work in relation to history.鈥�
In an almost Warholian manner, yet completely un-dandy-ish, Harms withdraws from the role of the artist as genius inventor. Rather, he sees himself as an agent or intermediary between his subjects鈥� actions, the plays continuously acted out in front of his eyes, and the paintings to be painted. As if he was taking precise orders from his motif: do it this way! 脴sterf忙lden takes on the role of the factory, birds and cats are the Superstars, the artist becomes their extension, or as Harms put it 鈥渁n employee of my subjects.鈥�
During the act of painting, the motif, rather than the artist, is the decision-maker. Method and content collapse into one! There is no distinction between form and content, and herein lies the extravagance and unmistakable character of Harms鈥� painting.
Artists on show
What's on nearby
