PEER BOEHM AND MICHAEL SCHUSTER: WIR SEHEN UNS

July 15 - August 26, 2023

Peer Boehm has been working on the conceptual and thematic question of the perception of reality and the memory of what is seen and experienced in various work cycles since 2006. Boehm uses photographs of anonymous persons, places and interiors that are not clearly identifiable as the starting point for finding images. He then reduces these photographic models to such an extent that the motifs and the pictorial events are formed by light-dark contrasts. In doing so, he uses a pictorial language that lives from the principle of omission, from the empty space. This reduction of motifs, which is characteristic of Peer Boehm, is contrasted in his most recent works by his painted elaboration of the surfaces and the background of the picture. The brushstroke and the colour gradients, which are created by the application of the paint on the already existing image, give the works the texture that is typical of Boehm's work. The composition, the decidedly chosen cropping of the motif and its placement in the pictorial space are further central components of his graphically reduced visual language.

 

Michael Schuster‘s pictures are simulataneously temporal and time- less. Temporal through the use of the seemingly organic, perishable sycamore leaves, while also timeless through the openness of his pictorial worlds. Dried and pressed foliage forms the raw material for the cut-outs, which he then fixes onto paper. Both photographs of his own and those of others that he has acquired provide inspiring ideas for his motifs and compositions. All the works bear the title „Lichtbild“ („Photograph“) along with a reference to the year in which the photographic image was taken. This reference to the photographic source is essential for the artist, as it manifests time as a solidified moment. The titles, however, refer equally to the fundamental im- portance of light, which is essential for the growth of the foliage and the creation of the photographs.