Sven-Ole Frahm

Juicy Dub

Vom 10. April bis 31. Mai 2008

Markus Winter presents new works from Sven-Ole Frahm.   The exhibition opens in his Berlin gallery on the April 10 th and will run through May 31 st , 2008.  The exhibition title, Juicy Dub , refers to the close proximity of Frahm's work to the sampling of dub music.

While Frahm's artistic creation is rooted the consciousness of art historical contexts, his work goes forth from this background to develop further possibilities for contemporary visual art.  Through his technique of cutting and reconstructing the painted canvases, he brings a new facet to the act of painting.

In the catalog from the exhibition Compilation III at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Heike van den Valentyn discusses the significance of Frahm's work: “Phenomologically the images by Sven-Ole Frahm embody an inverse structuralism.  The ‘cut and paste' approach to the canvas marks a radical, irreversible engagement with and contrast to the rather spontaneous movement that is visible through the act of pouring and dripping.  His method of painting derives its significance from the confrontation of these parallel-developing structures. The colorful canvases are then understood much more as a starting point, as a raw material in the process of transformation, through which a nonhierarchical handling of the subject and the medium of the image make the chronology volatile.  The painting becomes a blank in the sculptural sense.”

Frahm was awarded the 60th Bergischer Kunstpreis based on the jury's assessment that his work is art historically relevant and that his visual language belongs to a unique perspective.  His work draws the viewer's attention to its innovative aspects.  The process of the painting's genesis is formative for its results.   The jury further describes his methods of cutting as reminiscent of Fontana's practice of art making and the establishing of a metaphysical framework in painting, while the assemblage incorporates aspects of constructivism.

Parallel to the exhibition in Berlin, Markus Winter is showing at Art Cologne. Sculptures and paintings by Maki Umehara, Lars Breuer, Jean-Baptiste Bouvier, Jim Lee, and Alexander Knych will be on display in addition to work by Sven-Ole Frahm.