10 October – 24 November 2007
Private View 9 October 2007 6-8pm
Ben Brown Fine Arts is pleased to present the German painter Heribert C. Ottersbach showing for the first time at Ben Brown Fine Arts; Ottersbach is showing new works; Portraits and Exteriors. These works present the artist’s acute commentary on processes of Modernity, debates surrounding the discourse of painting and the relationship of the artist to society and history. Ottersbach’s insight and sensitivity to humanity and its constructs places him as a mediator in the social context. His dedication and passion for painting has led him to create a method that probes and investigates a broad subject to produce a rich body of stunning works that continue to flourish within a medium that has often been pronounced dead. Ottersbach deconstructs and reassembles photographic images to create dramatic paintings composed of stark contrasting shapes. He explores the relationships between art, ideology and the perception of history through painting. Ottersbach uses images that are familiar to the viewer; he derives his material from a huge, well researched archive of pre existing images from everyday life.
In the manner of Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke before him, he photographs his surroundings and uses material from historical documents. He explores the relationship between past and present and the visual memory's function within this; his paintings have been described as marking the process of déjà vu, he investigates how memory produces in the present as opposed to solely being something of the past. Using digital collage he constructs a composition that will be then transferred on to the final result. The action of painting is essential to understanding Ottersbach's vision. The action of the hand provides a challenge to the intervention of the machine. He focuses on practices of editing along with conditions of remembering to produce a dramatic effect.
Born in Köln in 1960, he has lived through landmark events that were recognised as history in the making. The Berlin wall being dismantled was particularly significant for Ottersbach as it represented the end of Utopianism, the ideals of modernism and a shift into the realms of post modernity; new perspectives of society and histories that could be created. Ottersbach exists in some of the most important international collections today including the Collection Deutsche Bank, Getty centre L.A. and the Bibliotèque Nationale, Paris and is a prominent feature of most German collections. Ben Brown is honored to present Ottersbach in
'Portraits and Exteriors' in what is a testimony to the history and future of painting. He lives and works in Cologne and St. Léon sur Vézère.
Catalogue available with a text by Jill Lloyd
For further details contact: Ben Brown Fine Arts @ 020 7734 8888 or [email protected]
