Romanticism Andrea Hanak Frank Hutter
Romanticism Paintings Andrea Hanak Frank Hutter Curated by Sean Scully March 23 – May 5, 2013
THE RIVERSIDE GALLERIES Garrison Art Center 23 Garrison’s Landing Garrison, New York 10524
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Romanticism — curated by Sean Scully, 2013 Featuring the paintings of German artists Andrea Hanak and Frank Hutter The Riverside Galleries at Garrison Art Center, Garrison, New York March 23 – May 5, 2013 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. The only exception in this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by the U.S. copyright law. Please contact: carindaswann@theriversidegalleries.org Garrison Art Center PO Box 4, 23 Garrison’s Landing Garrison, New York, 10524. Introduction © Sean Scully, 2013 Statement © Andrea Hanak, 2013 Statement © Frank Hutter, 2013 Book and cover design by Carinda Swann
Acknowledgements On behalf of the Garrison Art Center Board of Directors, I would like to thank Sean Scully for introducing us to the work of Andrea Hanak and Frank Hutter and for organizing this stirring and measured collection of work. Early in the planning stages of the exhibition, Sean spoke passionately of German Romanticism of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and of his appreciation for the energy and intelligence of the current art scene in Germany, particularly in Munich, where Andrea and Frank currently live and work. During that first conversation, as Sean described the work of the two artists and how it relates to that period, the title of the exhibition effortlessly emerged. I extend deep appreciation to both Andrea and Frank whose deeply rich work is certain to inform and enrich our gallery visitors, students and teaching artists. Time is a precious commodity, and I thank Andrea and Frank as well for their time to travel to the United States for the opening of the exhibition. Garrison Art Center’s Leadership Circle was established in 2011 in part to support our annual exhibition series in The Riverside Galleries. I am deeply grateful to following for their generosity and committed support of our charge to offer art of consequence for the enrichment and enjoyment of our local and larger communities: Christopher Buck, Bill Burback and Peter Hofmann, Kim Conner and Nick Groombridge, Marylyn Dintenfass and John Driscoll, Heidi Ettinger, Stacey Farley and Peter Davoren, Gregory Glasson and Mary Madden, Judith and George Lowry, Michael and Liza Musgrave, Annie Myers, Zanne and Gordon Stewart and Sheila and Rick Thurston. As with any major effort, a large part of the credit is due to an enthusiastic and diligent staff. The Art Center staff never ceases to amaze me with their positive and capable support. In addition, a number of volunteers are very important to the success of The Riverside Galleries. The Gallery Committee is a critical part of the effort to ensure that our exhibitions remain high in quality and offer viewers an educational and/or inspirational experience. The gallery committee consists of artists who generously offer their time and exceptional talents, for which I am sincerely grateful: Committee Chair, Maryann Syrek and members John Allen, Edith Ehrlich, Thomas Huber, Grace Knowlton, Kaija Korpijaakko and Martee Levi. Also, I would like to thank artist James Murray who is an indispensable asset during installation. --Carinda Swann, Executive Director, Garrison Art Center, March, 2013
Introduction Something from the East I present two wonderful young artists from Munich, one of whom I taught when I was a professor there. Munich was very interesting for me because it had been a powerful center for painting, both in the 19th century with romanticism and again in the birth of the 20th century, with great artists such as Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, and Franz Marc--working in and around the city, blazing a trail for advanced abstraction based on love of landscape, for countless others to follow. A powerful shared aspect of Frank Hutter’s and Andrea Hanak’s work is the use of shadow and its rendering in black. Painting in America became frontal and flattened out, and this famously made America the stronghold of advanced painting, exemplified by Lichtenstein (for figuration) and Newman (for abstraction) to name just two. This flattened ‘emblematic’ visual message maintained New York’s hegemony over the visual arts until the eighties, when the artists of Europe and especially Germany, came flooding in. With them, they brought an aggressive return to figuration, and an articulated subjective space. This giant step ‘backwards’ into the idea of the figure in a deep or wild space, opened up massive possibilities for painting, as it simultaneously heralded the end of unbending obedience to modernism in painting on a flat surface. The flowers and heads in Andrea’s work are beaten down by time, and distorted by her sorrows. Yet from this loss she salvages a dark ornamented beauty, as she places her figure in its shadowy context. A worrying, brooding black space into which life falls and rises, her flowers could be found on the path just used by Dracula, as they struggle for air, in their sooted landscape. Her work has the deep beautiful mystery of ornate layered color in varnish, as used in the East. Frank’s birds do not really exist. Yet in the mind they exist, and as paintings they flourish. Less tragically than his wife’s work, they are, nevertheless, inventions of the fantastic wedded to the romantic past. And with his paintings, all is dark and deep. His work exemplifies and radiates a
breathtaking mastery of technique. Thus they are devotional and humble. The artist labors, in love, to create visions that will only ever exist as art. His patient refining leads to an art that is deeply visionary. If the world, in its worst-case scenario, became a giant supermarket, the romantic spirit would find and celebrate mystery, in the shadows cast by boxes standing in relentless rows, on its shelves. This spirit will always rise, even if it lives in a corner. German artists are obliged by their peers to think very deeply about their art. This creates a foundation for feeling and thought that supports work as something philosophically visual at its outset. Both Andrea Hanak and Frank Hutter are clearly the positive heirs of romanticism that, with the exception of the English poets, belongs virtually unchallenged, to Germany and the German romantic spirit. --Sean Scully, March, 2013 Sean Scully was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1945 and raised in South London. He studied at Croydon College of Art and Newcastle University. He was a recipient of a graduate fellowship at Harvard in the early 1970s and subsequently settled in New York. Other prizes include the Stuyvesant Foundation Prize, John Knox Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (in two successive years) and the Guggenheim Fellowship. Scully was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1989 and 1993. He has exhibited widely in Europe and the United States, and is represented in the permanent collections of a number of museums and public galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., The Art Institute of Chicago, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the National Gallery of Australia, the Tate Gallery, London, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, and many other private and public collections worldwide.
ANDREA HANAK Artist Statement Two contrasting positions confront one another within my work. Enlightenment and mysticism are the words which might best paraphrase my work. On the one hand, I reject the idea that the visible world is the only valid one. At the same time, belief is not enough. For each nonanalytical insight, we require at the same time, concepts that enable us to form understanding; and such is the case with visual perception. Sensuality and understanding are the two individual sources of knowledge, both equally important, and each dependent on one another. ‘Thoughts without content are empty; visual perceptions without theory are blind.’ (Immanuel Kant: AA III, 75[6]) I would describe the structure of my work as being informal and romantic. Informal and Romanticism: These words, besides describing an art ‘style‘,present a specific problem, since, in their purest sense they deny specific form and clarity. How should I make visible that which is concealed, which resides only within, and in that sense might be termed mystical? My work is radical in its form of confrontation with what Giorgio Agamben calls the ‘destruction of experience’, which places experience above all else, and wants nothing more. Internal experience is what one might call mystic experience — the conditions required for an intense emotion. In this sense I don’t mean the experience of faith, rather, one which is free of it. Such internal experience is not a form of subjective affirmation, but, rather, a particular form of perception; the perception of the unrecognizable. It dives deep into the liveliest, most physical, the riskiest reaches of being, and is not sated by abstract certainties. It is a form of art which can generate self-confidence, facilitate self-discovery, and reflects the experience of being. If you want a word for it, it is pure mysticism.
Composition with White, 2012 Oil on wood, 40 x 35 cm
Composition with Blue I, 2012 Oil on glass, 41,8 x 33,5 cm
Composition with Blue II, 2012 Oil on wood, 40 x 30 cm
Composition with Pink, 2012 Oil and collage on wood, 40 x 30 cm
Composition with Red, 2011 Oil on wood, 40 x 30 cm
Composition with Black, 2012 Oil on wood, 40 x 35 cm
Portait I, 2012 Oil on wood, 40 x 30 cm
Portait II, 2012 Oil and collage on wood, 40 x 35 cm
FRANK HUTTER Artist Statement As a painter one is consistently and inextricably accompanied by the history of painting. The past justifies our action. The present is the incitement for our artistic action. Time will verify it. The refined and elaborated appearance of my paintings is the result of what I would describe as a concentrated, time-consuming painting process. The basis for this process is the centuries-old technique of glazing in which multiple layers of translucent paint get successively applied. By intervening into this process in various ways, I create a painterly distortion which distinguishes the result from the more traditional glazing technique. Slowing down the process of painting as a concept against today’s high tech, highly accelerated lifestyle is one reason I regard my paintings as romantic. But they are about more than that. We are not at the end of the history. We are at the very beginning, which means that all we have to do is add on. Whether the next step is huge or just as tiny as can be, it is the need to move forward that describes us as human beings. In this sense, to me, painting expresses our human nature. And this is what I want to offer through my paintings--the possibility of a new view/ perspective.
Astonished looking Bird, sitting in a Landscape, May 2011 Oil on paper, 28.1 x 23.5 cm
UNTITLED, September 2010 Oil on paper, 27.1 x 23.3 cm
UNTITLED, 2010-2011 Oil on Linen , 49 x 41 cm
UNTITLED, 2010 Oil on linen , 38 x 32 cm
UNTITLED, October 2010 Oil on paper, 30 x 24 cm
RARA AVIS, 2011 Oil on Paper , 42,3 x 35,1 cm
UNTITLED, June 2009 Oil on paper , 30 x 24 cm
UNTITLED, 2012 India ink, lacquer on paper , 20.5 x 16.6 cm
ANDREA HANAK 1969 Born in Wolfratshausen, Germany, lives and works in München, Germany 1999 – 2006 Academy of Fine Arts München, under Prof. Günther Förg 2008 Co-founder of the project-space for contemporary art, GRASSEREINS Prizes, Grants, Residencies 2011/12 Grant, Förderprogramm zur Chancengleichheit (Equal Opportunities Development Program) of the Bavarian State Ministry of Sciences, Research and the Arts 2009 Grant, Atelierförderung of the Bavarian State 2006 Villa-Romana-Prize, Florence Solo Shows 2011 Ich seh‘ durch sie hindurch, Gonzo, Weltraum, München (with Andreas Nann) 2010 Andrea Hanak, Gebrüder, München 2008 Revue, Galerie Royal, München 2006 Stereoskop Fanfare, Galerie Royal, München (with Silke Markefka) Andrea Hanak, Galerie Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf 2002 Undine renoviert! (Undine Renovates!), Galerie Royal, München (with Andreas Stambader) Group Shows 2012 Edition Karbit, Studio Hottner + Hefele, München 2011 Die ersten Jahre der Professionalität 30, BBK, München 2010 Komm wir gehen, Galerie Jahn (Baaderstrasse), München 2009 Apokalypse mit Figuren (Apokalypse with Figures), Andreas Grimm Galerie, München Zeichnung heute (Drawing Today), Galerie Royal, München Venus & Mars, Weltraum, München 2008 Der Beweis (The Argumentation), lecture by Berthold Reiß, Weltraum, München Opening GRASSEREINS, München 2007 Auch das Unnatürlichste ist die Natur (Even the Most Unnatural is Nature), Galerie Michael Neff, Frankfurt 2006 Palette, Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York Nacht und Wald (Night and Forest), Galerie Royal, München Exhibition of the Villa Romana prize winners, Villa Romana, Florence 2005 24h, Verein für original Radierung, München 17. Bundeswettbewerb (17. Federal Competition), Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle, Bonn FAVORITEN – Neue Kunst in München (FAVORITEN – New Contemporary Art in München), Kunstbau/Lenbachhaus, München Bibliography 2011 Die ersten jahre der Professionalität 30, publisher BBK München, essay by Anja Lückenkemper, 48 P. 2006 Villa Romana-Preisträger 2006/2007 (Villa Romana-Prize-Winners 2006/2007), Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg, essay by Peter T. Lenhart, 103 P. 2005 FAVORITEN – Neue Kunst in München (FAVORITEN – New Contemporary Art in München), Publisher Lenbachhaus München, foreword by Helmut Friedel, essays by Susanne Gaensheimer + Julia Höner, 130 P.
FRANK HUTTER 1969 Born in Freising, Germany, lives and works in München, Germany 1999 – 2004 Academy of Fine Arts, München under Prof. Gerd Winner and Prof. Sean Scully 2004 – 2009 Künstlerischer Asst. at the Academy of Fine Arts, München under Prof. Sean Scully 2008 Co-founder of the project-space for contemporary art, GRASSEREINS Awards, Grants Diploma Prize of the Academy of Fine Arts, München: Manfred Bischoff Preis Studio Grant of the Bavarian State Studio Grant of the Landeshauptstadt München Solo Shows 2012 Our Future Your Clutter, Gebrüder, München RARA AVIS, Neuer Pfaffenhofner Kunstverein, Pfaffenhofen 2005 Galerie Günther Zulauf, Freinsheim Figur und Grund, zusammen mit Marcus Berkmann, Kunstverein Passau, Passau 2004 Galerie Walter Storms, München 2003 It Isn’t Safer in First Class, Malerei, Akademiegalerie, München 1997 BBK Galerie, Ingolstadt: 9.84 sec. Fotografie Group Shows 2012 Teer & Federn, Marquee, Berlin Edition Karbit, Atelier Hefele & Hottner, München 2011 Edition Karbit, Atelier Hefele & Hottner, München Benefit Exhibition for Japanese Earthquake Victims, Art-Report Projects at K4 Galerie, München 2009 Apokalypse Mit Figuren, Andreas Grimm Gallery, München Venus & Mars, Weltraum, München Zeichnung Heute, Galerie Royal, München Spatial Illusions, Galerie Hattyuhaz, Pecs, Ungarn 2008 Projektraum GRASSEREINS, München Zimmer frei, Hotel Mariandl, München Ölmachtgeld, Kunstarkaden, München 2007 Das Morphologische Feld (hinter der Augustinerbrauerei), München Crossbreeding, Galerie Hattyuhaz, Pecs, Ungarn 30 Jahre Walter Storms Galerie, München 2006 The Gagosian Gallery, Berlin zu Gast in der Pension Banane, München Diplompreisträger-Ausstellung, Akademie Der Bildenden Künste, München 2004 Schule der Malerei, Diözesanmuseum Freising Spezialversorgung, Kunstverein Freising 2002 Galerie der Hochschule für Kunst und Gestaltung, Zürich München: Zürich, Fotografie, zusammen mit Robert Voit 1998 Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart: Work Art – Förderpreisausstellung der Robert Bosch GmbH