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BLACK
& WHITE GALLERY is very pleased to present Nightology
by Swiss artist Stefan à Wengen. The
exhibition title Nightology alludes to the
Romantic tradition that so often set its sights on shadowed
and obscure worlds. Stefan à Wengen uses the
seemingly clear, but in reality deeply enigmatic pictorial
language to reflect upon our relationship to the world
and the consequences of spiritual and social isolation
in contemporary cultures. The paintings come alive through
the intense poetic power à Wengen unleashes,
first in himself as he is placing common objects that
trigger collective memory into deserted landscapes,
and then in us as we continue the work-in-progress of
reading meaning into them. In doing that his motifs
transmit into a highly complex network of relationships,
which are both visual and substantive in nature, in
which constructive conflicts arise between what is shown
and what is intended.
Stefan
à Wengen (*1964) is a graduate of the School
of Design, Basel, Switzerland (1986). à Wengen
has shown his work in numerous group and solo exhibitions
throughout Europe. He is the recipient of the prestigious
Kiefer-Hablitzel-Stipendium (1987/1988) and Swiss Art
Award (1989/2000). His work is in many private and museum
collections, such as Museum of Art, Basel, Switzerland;
The Peter Stuyvesant-Collection, The Netherlands; Museum
of Art Lucerne, Switzerland; Ricola-Collection, Laufen,
Switzerland; The Sanders-Collection, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands. Stefan à Wengen lives and works
in Dusseldorf, Germany. This is his first solo exhibition
in the US.
The
exhibition is accompanied by a hardcover catalogue with
texts by Julian Heynen (curator of the German Pavilion
at the Venice Biennial in 2003 and 2005, co-curator
of the Shanghai Biennial in 2008) and Raymund Weyers
(Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University
of Cologne).
pdf version
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