Abendland
Harald Reiner Gratz

We invite you and your friends to the event with the artist at the appropriate time. The exhibition can be visited from May 15th.

The West is not a ship, but a cultural island. It is washed over, but does not sink. Antiquity, Christianity, the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment - washed up, washed away. After the wave of modernity came red, brown and green broth. New layers. Again and again a piece of land looks out, and ghosts sit on top of it. Then the next wave. Other islands within sight that come closer with every tide.

When Harald Gratz describes the West, he is a gifted and knowledgeable narrator who uses painting rather than words. He shapes them into parables, metaphors, head cinemas. Gratz studied at Halle Castle and Dresden University in the eighties, later he lived in Rome and New York. Modern and post-modern determine his artistic language: the Fauves, the Expressionists, David Hockney. His peinture is opulent, sometimes lively, often vibrating; the colors are sparkling on the canvases in precious layers. He masters the old masterly and lets it flash again and again. As a rule, he avoids it, like a shiny artist who, dressed as a clown, does spectacular falls.