WAS HAT DICH BLOß SO RUINIERT?

WHAT ON EARTH HAS RUINED YOU LIKE THIS?

Medium:

Oil on canvas, mounted on a wooden stretcher

Technique:

Painting with brush and oil paint

Delivery:

The work will be dispatched stretched onto the stretcher described above – including a certificate of authenticity and the artist’s signature on the reverse.

The work is currently on display at the SKM Gallery and cannot be dispatched until mid-November. If you would like earlier delivery, please contact the SKM team.

What is it about? The work is part of the ‘TUNING’ series – spanning the period from 2018 to the present day, although the pure colour segments have only come to dominate the ‘TUNING’ series since 2021. It involves a gradual abstraction and reduction of the pictorial content, whilst references to natural and man-made phenomena may be found in the colour scheme.

‘WAS HAT DICH BLOß SO RUINIERT’ is part of a series of medium-format works that all share the same formal composition: a rectangle. In this way, I create a sort of control group in which the pure focus on the various colour gradients comes to the fore and, by eliminating other formal components, leads to a more intense engagement with the pure ‘sound’ of colour. Viewed from a distance, the work can appear like a digital montage in space, and it is only upon closer inspection that its artisanal origins become apparent. The brushstrokes can still be faintly discerned in places. 

‘WHAT ON EARTH HAS RUINED YOU SO?’ is an introspective question the painter poses to himself. It asks: ‘Where is the anger?’ from past works. Where is this minimalism leading? The question can be read as both serious and ironic. Each finished work represents an iteration within the body of work whilst simultaneously raising the question: ‘And now?’ Incidentally, I really like this work. The delicate, diaphanous application of colour, the slightly pastel-like, unostentatious, restrained quality that brings with it contemplation and tranquillity. 

Digital colour palettes, flip-flop paint finishes from tuned sports cars, sunsets, heavy industry, space and reflections in coffee can all find their way into the colour compositions.

My current aim in my work is to achieve as much abstraction as possible.

Here is a text that forms the basis for my current series.

De-objectification

Perhaps there is no object in which its de-objectification is not inscribed. Not necessarily as dissolution or final fragmentation, but as a withdrawal from the objectifying gaze. For the object, which in Ancient Greek is called Α ν τ ι κ ε ί με ν (Latin: objectum), marks the counterpart of a (perceiving) subject, which we call the object. It stands opposite, forms an opposition and, in doing so, is constituted not only within the subject-object relation; it also proves to be a construct which, like any construction, can be broken down into its constituent parts. This decomposition is inherent within it. Rather than being an act imposed from without, it is a priori inherent in the object’s concreteness. In fact, seeing does not mean exclusively synthesising or assembling in order to constitute concreteness. Seeing equally means analysing, decomposing, splitting and fragmenting. The whole is invisible. Only the decomposing gaze, whose capacity for separation is tireless, gains concreteness. To do so, it must be sensitive to the fissures that hold the elements of the object together in their difference from one another. This sensitivity also extends to the contingent nature of the composition of the concrete world. Often, the connections between its elements could be different from what they are. Indeed, the concept of de-objectification points to the principle of contingency. Things are as they are, yet they need not be so. Contingency expresses the instability or arbitrariness of the world. It is an ontological indicator of the fragility of the world of things, that is to say, also of its transformability. Objectification also means: the de-realisation of the real in favour of a reality as yet unknown.

Marcus Steinweg