1998 Bernd Ikemann

10 April to 20 May 1998
Bernd Ikemann – Paintings
Cabinet Exhibition in the window

We continue our presentation of contemporary painting with two apparently contrasting artistic positions which had been the focus of our attention for six months in 1996 in the series “About Colour”. Bernd Ikemann (b. 1956) has been painting the same themes for years: the dead laid out in cemetery chapels, scenes of burials and – as a second series – television pictures. In his pictures he formulates again and again that it is more important to see how art is done, rather than what art is. This is because his art is less about the motif – not unusual for the Diözesanmuseum – than it is about the colour and technique which cause his pictures to evoke memories which one would rather forget. The rooms in his pictures are painted from a very close perspective, they seem interconnected and overlaid with decorative patterns and by furniture fragments which take on an abstract function in the picture. One is reminded of claustrophobic situations and time which appears to stand still on never-ending days.

(Artist Book)