Thomas Zipp

THOMAS ZIPP INCLUDED IN THE EXHIBITION: "PAINTING ON THE ROOF: WORKS CURATED BY VEIT LOERS"


The Paolo Curti/Annamaria Gambuzzi & Co. gallery presents, on Tues 24 June, the group show "Painting on the roof". The exhibition, curated by Veit Loers, comes directly from the Abteiberg Museum of Mönchengladbach, of which Loers is the director. It includes works by nine German artists, and the exhibition can be seen as a Manifesto of the new painting. These artists do not pay tribute to the large formats and violence of the post-Pop painting of the 1990s, but neither do they belong to the ranks of the "politically correct" art imposed by vogue-conscious curators. At the same time, we cannot associate these paintings, watercolors and drawings with the historical tradition of neo-expressionism. These works, perhaps, can be defined as neo-symbolist.
Most of the nine artists come from southern Germany. They come to grips with the idea of narrative art, though without any debt to it. They are interested in the concept of the icon, in the true sense of the term, that of representative painting. The images in "Painting on the Roof" embody a nomadic character that constitutes their force with respect to other experimentation with painting of this generation. The new often appears in the guise of the old. For this reason, these figurative works possess a symbolic, realistic, calligraphic lightness. But their foundation is formed by the pursuit of archetypes and the visionary gaze at the invisible that always permeated the painting of the 20th century, starting with Kandinsky.

Source: www.absolutearts.com


CRITICS’ PICKS - THOMAS ZIPP, GALERIE GUIDO W. BAUDACH
By Sophie Hamacher

The title of Thomas Zipp's latest exhibition, "EEEEEEE (God bless the Lord (Auch))," refers to the pseudonym under which Georges Bataille published The Story of the Eye in 1928. Apocalyptic, pornographic, and at times filled with wit, Zipp's "Schlaf-Bildern" (Sleep-Paintings) escort us through a field strewn with Bataillean imagery, a labyrinth of possibilities featuring flowers, bullets, asses, mountains, suns, and fish that look like zeppelins. In Der Schlaf IV (y-drops) (The Sleep IV [y-drops]), 2006, Zipp paints a landscape wherein a gloomy sky resembling a gigantic ass appears about to be impaled by a mountain peak. Zipp's "Sleep" series, painted in acrylic and oil, feature terrains eclipsed in darkness, symbolically echoing Bataille's essay "The Solar Anus." But hanging in front of each of these works are neon chandeliers girded by black-painted wood (E-Licht [E-Light], 2006), illuminating the paintings and their metaphor-laden imagery with an intense florescent light.

Dispersed throughout the show are repetitive typewritten letters on white sheets of torn paper, textual drawings that sometimes bear traces of bloodlike substances or bold black marks, while on the far side of the gallery, also in black wood, the Latin phrase Mens agitat molem (Mind Moves Matter), 2006, hangs on the wall, providing an erudite center to this transgressive wilderness. Far from a mere homage to Bataille, the exhibition, an energetic and half-absurd juxtaposition of disparate motifs, is refreshing in its hyperbolic threat of imminent disaster and surreal madness.

Source: artforum.com

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