The Gallery Gebr. Lehmann Berlin presents the second edition of the exhibition series About Blank, which gives a platform to young artists based in Germany to present their work. This year, the focus of the exhibition is material, showcased in works by Johannes Makolies, Anna Virnich, and Romin Walter.

The specific work processes and individual interpretations of the materials could hardly be more different between the three artists. The materials used in the artworks - glass, concrete, and fabric - contrast one another through their respective natural qualities. The glass, sensitive and fragile on the one hand, rigid and rough on the other, is a counterpart to concrete, which is fluid – formed and cast at the artist’s will, in spite of its firm and heavy texture in dry form. The gentler fabric creates a dialogue with these solid materials. With its lightness, the fabric gives an impression of flow and movement. Each artist pays great attention to the natural properties of the materials, staying clearly recognizable after the minimal manipulation.

Johannes Makolies
There is a massive amount of objects in the world. Whether functional items, decorative objects, random things, or the components that make them up – all of them take part in the inexorable circulation of materials. Urban objects find their place in the work of Johannes Makolies. Influenced by graffiti culture and objet-trouvé-aesthetics, he creates sculptures out of fragments of the city, and combines them with other materials to give them new meaning.
The individual stories of the used and found objects coalesce in the anonymity of architectonical material. Plaster and concrete are being cast into defined, clear geometrical forms. Furthermore, their combination with found objects results in the creation of hybrid assemblages that lead one to believe they possess a technical or architectural purpose.
The sculptures from the exhibition use industrial materials and thus make reference to urban aesthetics. In their minimalistic composition, the substances used for building and infrastructure become non-functional. The usage of colour manipulates the three-dimensionality of the works. Due to the intense contours, the plastic objects appear to be painted.

Anna Virnich
The paint and the canvas belong together – this is one of the main premises of the painting process. However, when the paint and pigments are removed from the pictorial composition, the fabric can then display its full potential. Anna Virnich highlights the expressiveness of the fabric by developing it with her careful, delicate, abstractly intuitive craft.
Anna Virnich’s textile works are distinguished by their lightness. The fabrics are layered or arranged side by side and stretched over the canvas. These compositions become wall objects of painting-esque quality. In addition to the traditional relation between form and colour, the texture of the fabric also plays a great role in Virnich’s work. It extends the sensory focus of
mere visual to physical, touch-based sensations. The combination of these sensory impressions gives the fabric a vital appearance.

Romin Walter
In the installations by Romin Walter, materials stay in a constant interaction with one another. Based on the physical laws and properties of the materials, he develops the methods in which the parts of the artwork are connected by a balanced action of physical forces.
Romin Walter uses the material as an instrument for experiencing a certain environment of space, force, light, shadow, and reflection. The focus of every installation is the real tension that emerges between its elements. Unlike in the depictive mode of the painting, the tension here is not abstract, but fully tangible. The artificial materials like concrete, steel, and glass are neutral in their meaning and therefore give priority to the tension spaces they generate.
The invisible energies are visualized through the material in Walter’s installations. The force itself is immaterial whereas it has a clearly perceptible and apparent effect that we can observe in the constellation realized in the artwork. So, the physical tension that binds the materials can be perceived through viewing. The artist symbolically projects this with abstract concepts, and the social/psychological situations we experience in reality.


curated by Olga Hammermeister


opening 13.03.2015
14.03. - 25.04.2015
Galerie Gebr. Lehmann 
Lindenstr. 35
10969 Berlin
opening hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11 am - 6 pm

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About Blank II - groupshow with Johannes Makolies, Anna Virnich and Romin Walter