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12 June – 22 August 2004
Introduction | Cologne
| von Bonin | Braun
| Herold | Krebber | Kunath
| Lindena | Events
& Education
Georg Herold
Georg Herold Come all, kneel and profess 2002
©
Georg Herold/photograph by Wolfgang Günzel
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The work of Georg Herold has been of international
importance for nearly three decades. Rejecting traditional materials,
Herold creates sculptures, assemblages and wall-based 'drawings'
using bricks, baking powder, wood, vodka bottles, buttons and mattresses.
This has been linked to Arte Povera although any influence the movement
has had upon him is likely to have filtered through the work of
Joseph Beuys. Often political, his work engages with socio-cultural
issues and art history yet denies any simple reading: 'I intend
to reach a state that is ambiguous and allows all sorts of interpretations'.
Herold often assimilates a concern for the issues of the day, from
the worlds of politics, art, and science, with his sardonic wit.
In 1982 he made an untitled drawing of a map of the world adding
a brief handwritten definition to each country: United States, 'Criminals';
Germany, 'Nothing Seen, Nothing Heard'; France, 'Know Everything';
Russia, 'Nothing Learned'. Herold has also responded with humour
to technological development. In his exhibition compu.comp.
virtual visualities equivacs bitmapdys 1995, the artist mimicked
computer drawing software by making a number of wall-based works
using Mylar mirrors and hundreds of small blocks of wood. These
were joined together to create elaborate twisting forms that protruded
into the gallery like a line drawing in space. Each block represented
a computer pixel, mocking contemporary computers' inability to draw
smooth curving lines. The work also alludes to the processes of
art making and to techno-savvy sculptors who use 3D modelling packages.
Titles and the incorporation of text are also important
to Herold, as demonstrated by the world map. In Russische Schweiz
(Russian Switzerland), included in the exhibition, Herold has constructed
a frame of the kind typically used to support a canvas. Yet instead
of this the frame contains a web of wire on which are placed wooden
strips bearing Cyrillic inscriptions. The opposition of the text
and the missing canvas, emphasised by the work's title (printed
at the top of the frame), suggest a sense of displacement and exile.
Herold's intense reaction to the subject undoubtedly stems from
personal experience; he was imprisoned for an escape attempt by
the East German government before finally being allowed to settle
in the West in 1973.
Georg Herold was born in Iena, East Germany in 1947.
He studied at the Academy of Fine Art in Munich from 1974 to 1976
and at the Academy of Fine Art in Hamburg from 1977 to 1978. Recent
solo exhibitions include Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London (2004),
Galeria Juana de Aizpura, Madrid (2000) and Kunsthalle Zürich (1999).
His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions. |
