Image and text play an equally important role in the painting of Gunter Reski (born 1963). It is there also consequent when connections to the promotional techniques of visual communications (posters, murals, agitprop, pop and advertising aesthetics) are sought in the artist’s picture formats that often expand directly on the wall. Regardless of how eye-catching, in fact even low-brow Reski’s pictures appear at first glance, their primary characteristic is the demonstration of how imaginatively and diversely they again and again establish painting as their true theme, and even if it was only for the purpose of accusing it of possessing the intrinsically narrow horizon that comes about at the point where painting congeals into an institution, becomes a bank that, automated as it were, yields art dividends.

Reski became active as an artist, author and curator in the early 1990s. At that time, painting was anything but self-evident, particularly within the progressively situated artistic milieu. This is reflected in the openness of Reski’s artistic practice that was typical of that time, especially in the way it incorporates conceptual, theoretical and communicative working methods over and above painting. At the same time this does not remain without influence on the painterly work itself, thus making it highly significant today from an historical perspective.

It was the resistance against intellectual trends and the artistic zeitgeist that was then – and today still is – often the motivation for taking up the paintbrush of all things considering the many other instruments art makes available; but the applause that one can rightly expect for this reason alone does not necessarily come from the correct side. Doktor Morgen neue Sorgen borgen is the first institutional overview of Gunter Reski’s oeuvre.

Aside from the retrospective selection of paintings and works on paper dating from two decades, the exhibition at the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf also features new pieces by the artist, including a wall painting developed especially for the foyer of the Kunstverein.

Curated by Hans-Jürgen Hafner

The exhibition is supported by
Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf
Stadtwerke Düsseldorf

Hans-Jürgen Hafner will hold the lecture Zu alter Whisky in conjunction with the exhibition on Thursday, April 25th 2013, at 7.30pm.