David Schnells bisweilen kristallin wirkende Malerei heller Innenr\u00e4ume, aber auch seine dunkleren Bilder verweisen in ihrer Lichtwirkung, dem Eindruck von transluziden Reflektionen und den abstrahierten Formen auf die Technik der Glasmalerei, die ihm nicht fremd ist. So schuf er 2009 f\u00fcr die Leipziger Thomaskirche die Friedensfenster und entwirft im Augenblick f\u00fcr die K\u00f6lner Christuskirche neue Glasfenster. Aber seine Bilder sind weniger Ausdruck religi\u00f6ser Andacht, er verzichtet bewusst auf jegliche Narration. Seine Malerei vermittelt den Glauben an die Kraft der Farbe und des Lichtes, es ist konzentrierte Kunst, die entgegen der sportlichen Bedeutung des Titels \u201eVert\u201c Ruhe, eventuell auch Achtsamkeit ob der Malerei einfordert. Und damit ist vielleicht ein anderer Punkt im Werk des Leipziger Malers zu erkennen, n\u00e4mlich dass eine am Anfang gesetzte Systematik wieder verlassen wird und zum Gegenteil verkehrt wird \u2013 wo der Titel Schnelligkeit verspricht, kann die Malerei mit Bedachtsamkeit \u00fcberzeugen.<\/p>\n
(Siehe http:\/\/www.eigen-art.com\/index.php?article_id=1553&clang=0&detail=22653)<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.eigen-art.com\/files\/dschnell_vert_ansicht4.jpg\")
Exhibition view, Eigen + Art, Berlin 2017<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
David Schnell, vert<\/em><\/strong>
\n<\/strong>Galerie EIGEN + ART Berlin,<\/strong> September 7 – November 4, 2017<\/strong><\/p>\nvert<\/em>, the title of the current exhibition, does not arise from the field of the artistic-imaginary as a reference to green, alluding to the landscape, the subject David Schnell favors along with the interior. No, \u201cvert\u201d, is a quite profane expression from the field of extreme sports: it designates the challenging variants of, for example, skateboard and BMX sports on the semicircular ramps called half-pipes. Speed, daring, movements \u2013 associations that can be connected with \u201cvert\u201d, but which do not necessarily arise in connection with painting, a rather slow medium that usually demands calm and contemplation from both the producer and the recipient. And yet it is a very fitting term for this exhibition, because \u201cvert\u201d not only stands for a BMX discipline that the artist, too, has devoted himself to in recent years; as an English abbreviation of \u201cvertical\u201d, it also points to one of the structural characteristics of this painter from Leipzig: as different as the motifs and formats of his paintings may be, including in earlier works, they very often share a powerful structural and formal tendency to vertical orientation, a lofty range that sometimes seems to unite the earthly and the heavenly and that refers to one of the constant principles of construction in his painting.<\/p>\nDespite all the serenity and balance of its composition, often produced by a strong one-point perspective, David Schnell\u2019s painting creates the feeling of being drawn into the picture. The viewers stand as if on a ramp in front of Schnell\u2019s paintings, imaginarily just about to plunge into the picture. For example, the large-format landscape painting characterized by blue and green tones, Downtown<\/em>, opens up like a window onto a dynamized pictorial space. The far-seeing perspective and the staggered placement of vertical color fields tapering toward the back sweep the viewers along in a nosedive toward the horizon placed near the middle. Here, \u201cvert\u201d could also stand for \u201cvertigo\u201d; if one looks for a while at this landscape, it can overwhelm one with dizziness. The colors of the geometric forms condense toward the top and bottom; the interplay between abstracted-controlled \u201cstalagmites\u201d and \u201cstalactites\u201d dominates the middle part of the picture, creating a powerful effect of distance. On a closer look, the inkling of a landscape appears behind the abstraction, without being concretely definable and palpable \u2013 perhaps more an idea of landscape, pervaded by splotches of color, drops, and melting colors. A hint of organic forms, placed as if randomly. They want to resist the clear contours of the pixel-like color fields with their artificially asserted naturalness.<\/p>\nDrives through a culturally shaped landscape belong to David Schnell\u2019s inspirations as much as early computer games with poorly resolved graphics. Each landscape is construct and culture, is work on nature. Seldom is its core so clearly grasped as by David Schnell. His painting seems to carry out a weighing between imitating construed naturalness, on the one hand, and the rational and rule-like composition of pixel-like abstraction, on the other. He builds his landscape pictures with tectonically placed surfaces, thereby recalling the beginning of modern landscape pictures with Paul C\u00e9zanne, who put together his views of southern French landscapes from reduced forms and color fields.<\/p>\n
David Schnell works in parallel on more than one canvas, lets them stand for a while, and later continues his work again, sometimes changing them and confronting the original artistic problem in a new way. The paintings, however, are never battles of material. The artist applies his paints in washes, so that the bright canvas or older paint layers shimmer through from the back, lending the paintings an indwelling luminosity. The paints are not layered higher and higher, but remain primarily surface and color; sometimes they seem almost immaterial. Here, too, associations with older artists from art history are aroused, for example, when one is reminded of the cityscapes and interiors of Lyonel Feininger, whose crystalline-seeming color surfaces, also applied in washes, give the picture an inherent radiance, as if they were painted with light.<\/p>\n
As a consequence of his stay as a Fellow of the Villa Massimo in Rome in 2013, David Schnell began painting the interiors of churches. They testify to his delving into the presentation techniques of Baroque architecture, the illusionistic play of forms and light in the room as stage. In three pictures in this exhibition, too, he again takes up the thematic complex of sacred interiors. In three different scales of color, once painted with gray dominating, once with blue, and once with red tones, Schnell turns to the more intimate interior views, in contrast to the broad landscape pictures. Narrative reference to an object plays no role here. The distant recognizability of a room, the church room, serves more as an entry to the picture, as an anchor offering a hold and orientation on the eyes\u2019 path through the cascades of color. Devoid of human figures, like all of his pictures, in these Schnell concentrates completely on the illusion of space and the perspectival staggering of various color fields. The smaller formats convey concentrated intimacy, while the large-format pictures seem almost monumental, as if they wanted to encompass the viewer. The countless repetitions of the surfaces make the space seem endless; in cubistic reminiscence, he radically reduces the church furnishings and architecture, systematizing them to basic forms, visually deconstructing them, setting vanishing points and perspectives, and repeating fragments. The vertical course of the color fields also conveys the impression that they are turning away from earthliness. An encouragement to contemplation?<\/p>\n
With their light effects, the impression of translucid reflections, and abstracted forms, David Schnell\u2019s paintings are distantly reminiscent of stained glass art. Working with glass pictures is not unfamiliar to him: for example, he designed the \u201cFriedensfenster\u201d for Leipzig\u2019s St. Thomas\u2019s Church in 2009 and is currently designing new glass windows for Cologne\u2019s Christ\u2019s Church. But his pictures are not really an expression of religious worship; he consciously eschews all narration. His painting conveys belief in the power of color and light; it is concentrated art that, in contrast to the athletic meaning of the title vert<\/em>, demands calm and possibly attentiveness. And another point in the work of the Leipzig painter may be recognized therein, namely, that systematics set at the beginning are left behind and turned into their opposite: where the title promises velocity, the painting can convince with its deliberation.<\/p>\nTranslation by Mitch Cohen<\/p>\n
(See http:\/\/www.eigen-art.com\/index.php?article_id=1553&clang=0&detail=22654)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201eVert\u201c, der Titel der aktuellen Ausstellung, entspringt nicht etwa dem Gebiet des K\u00fcnstlerisch-Imagin\u00e4ren, als Verweis auf das Gr\u00fcne in Anspielung auf die Landschaft, das mit dem Interieur von David Schnell favorisierte Sujet. Nein, \u201evert\u201c ist ein ganz profaner Ausdruck aus dem Bereich der Extremsportarten: Er bezeichnet die herausfordernden Varianten etwa des Skateboard- oder BMX-Sports auf Half-Pipes, den halbrunden Rampen. Geschwindigkeit, Wagemut, Bewegungen \u2013 Assoziationen, die mit \u201evert\u201c in Verbindung gebracht werden k\u00f6nnen, aber die sich nicht unbedingt mit Malerei einstellen, einem eher langsam Medium, das zumeist Ruhe und Kontemplation beim Produzenten ebenso wie beim Rezipienten einfordert. Und<\/p>\n
Weiterlesen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[152],"tags":[190,189,141,192,191,15,138],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ausstellungstexte","tag-ausstellungstext","tag-david-schnell","tag-galerie","tag-interieur","tag-landschaft","tag-leipzig","tag-malerei"],"aioseo_notices":[],"wp-worthy-pixel":{"ignored":false,"public":"d85138aac42d48f3b0842cbb5aec25ae","server":"vg06.met.vgwort.de","url":"https:\/\/vg06.met.vgwort.de\/na\/d85138aac42d48f3b0842cbb5aec25ae"},"wp-worthy-type":"normal","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/frederic.bussmanns.eu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170807_182105-e1503952737787.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p863Lt-8Q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frederic.bussmanns.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frederic.bussmanns.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frederic.bussmanns.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frederic.bussmanns.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frederic.bussmanns.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/frederic.bussmanns.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":564,"href":"https:\/\/frederic.bussmanns.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions\/564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frederic.bussmanns.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frederic.bussmanns.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frederic.bussmanns.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frederic.bussmanns.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/frederic.bussmanns.eu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170807_183423-e1503951632586.jpg\")
<\/a>David Schnells Malerei erzeugt bei aller Ruhe und Ausgeglichenheit der Komposition, h\u00e4ufig bestimmt durch eine starke Zentralperspektive, das Gef\u00fchl, in das Bild hereingezogen zu werden. Wie auf einer Rampe stehen die Betrachterinnen und Betrachter vor einigen Gem\u00e4lden Schnells, imagin\u00e4r im Begriff, sich in das Bild zu st\u00fcrzen. So etwa bei dem gro\u00dfformatigen, von Blau- und Gr\u00fcnt\u00f6nen bestimmten Landschaftsbild Downtown. Die Malerei \u00f6ffnet sich wie ein Fenster zu einen dynamisierten Bildraum. Die \u00dcberblicksperspektive und die gestaffelte Setzung von vertikalen, sich nach hinten verj\u00fcngenden Farbfl\u00e4chen rei\u00dfen die Betrachter mit sich im Sturzflug auf den mittig angesetzten Horizont. \u201eVert\u201c k\u00f6nnte hier auch f\u00fcr \u201eVertigo\u201c stehen, Schwindel mag einen beim l\u00e4ngeren Schauen auf diese Landschaft \u00fcberkommen. Die geometrischen Formen verdichten sich farblich nach oben und nach unten; das Wechselspiel von abstrahiert-kontrollierten \u201aStalagmiten\u2018 und \u201aStalagtiten\u2018 dominiert den Mittelteil des Bildes und erzeugt so eine starke Fernwirkung. Beim n\u00e4heren Hinsehen scheint hinter der Abstraktion die Ahnung einer Landschaft auf, ohne konkret bestimmbar und greifbar zu sein, vielleicht eher eine Idee von Landschaft, durchzogen von Farbflecken, Tropfen und zerflie\u00dfenden Farben. Ein Hauch von organischen Formen, wie zuf\u00e4llig gesetzt. Sie wollen sich den klaren Kanten der pixelgleichen Farbfl\u00e4chen mit ihrer k\u00fcnstlerisch behaupteten Nat\u00fcrlichkeit widersetzen.<\/p>\n