Counterparts

Rottweil

In the so-called Black Forest, in the middle of nowhere in Germany, there is a little town called Rottweil. Against all prejudices of a sleepy little village, there happens a lot. At least in regards to art. Thanks to the non-commercial art space Forum Kunst Rottweil and Erich Hauser, a famous sculptor, who invited all his artists friends to exhibit at this location in the 1970s, Rottweil is regarded as an important venue in all national and international art agendas.

Continuing the daring innovativeness of Hauser, it is curator Robert Hak, who nowadays organizes exhibitions that go beyond ‚normal‘. This is afresh proven by this years show Counterparts that just unveiled in the end of January and ran until March 11th.
Together with Seoul-based curator Martin Schulze, he developed a concept that officially allows low and high culture to emerge to one: painters Hendrik Beikirch (DE) and Luciano Calderon (CH/AR) as well as photographer Nils Müller (DE) were asked to interpret the public perception of graffiti.
Whereas Calderon persuades with a six meter high painting of a mask that on the one hand reminds of the necessary device for graffiti artists to stay unseen and on the other hand of the typical hat that people up in the cold of the Andes wear, Beikirch and Müller join forces and literally work on Counterparts: Photographer Nils Müller, who is well known for documenting subway graffiti worldwide, took portrait shots of three prolific German graffiti artists. Normally, his photos show the figures from this scene with covered faces due to the clandestine nature of their work, but this time, Müller reveals the faces of this secretive subculture. This doesn’t only show the photographer’s closeness to his sitters, but also the ordinary of graffiti artists, who are generally expected to be highly criminal, aggressive, riot and lowbrow.
Reason enough for Hendrik Beikirch to use his fine art tool of large scale paintings to re-interprate this image anew: using brushes and cans, he portrays the characters concealed again. Next to the painted and photographed images, a short biography underlines the duplicitous life of each of the threesomes: the split between public and crime, life and fear, normality and bizarre, day- and nightlife.

Forum Kunst Rottweil

January 28th – March 11th, 2012
Friedrichsplatz
78628 Rottweil
Germany

Interview with ECB / Hendrik Beikirch on Wertical

Nils Müller

Luciano Calderon