Nymphius Projekte: Exhibitions by Friederike Nymphius
SEBASTIAN BLACK: WALK-INS WELCOME
14. January – 26. February 2011
Nymphius Projekte is pleased to announce the first European solo exhibition of the young New York-based artist Sebastian Black (b. 1985/US).
Black subjects the ‘meaningful’ art contents of classical modernism to a critical reflection. His ironic dog or puppy portrait restricted paintings refer to pioneers of abstract art such as the constructivists or they point to the pioneers of expressionism such as Alexy Jawlensky and Franz Marc.
His small-sized paintings are neither a resumption, nor an analytical genealogy, nor are they literal quotations of the art in this period. The way Black treats those tendencies is formed as a result of a subversively cultural-critical reflection: he separates the primal utopian, artistic concepts of the aforementioned genres from the formulation of his paintings, whereby his works tend to lose any artificially charged discursive structure.
“In this way they can slip between sincerity and irony, between being a puppy face and a female torso, between being like a painting and like a mask, between being unique and being simply a permutation, and between being smart and being sublimely stupid.” (Sebastian Black, 2010)
