Klaus Girnus

Klaus Girnus (born December 4, 1963 in Xanten ) is a German visual artist , married, father of three children. He lives and works in Xanten.

Life

Klaus Girnus attended the Walter Bader Realschule in Xanten until 1980 and then completed an apprenticeship as a painter. From 1990 to 1995 he studied fine art at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and became a master student of Professor Michael Buthe . In 1980 Klaus Girnus was a singer in the “Fleisch Freude International Club” and since 1983 in the “neuro-beat” group “Mystik Brust”. He also recorded a long-playing record with Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Baer . Klaus Girnus has been an excavation draftsman for the excavations in the " Colonia Ulpia Traiana " since 1993 .

plant

As a painter, Girnus is the inventor and interpreter of the " psychic pump ". Psychepump is an allegorical term for an abstract idea. It is made up of psyche ; Soul, inner life force, Greek legendary figure, lover of eros and pump; Device for lifting and conveying liquid; Heart; Blood; Lung; Air. Pumping can also mean borrowing or borrowing. The “pump pneuma” is also important, like a “ psychopompos ” (soul guide; title of the messenger god Hermes ).

He is not only active as a painter, but also as a poet, singer and sculptor. He says of himself in one of his texts, the “Manifesto as a mini manifesto of the imperial apparatus ...” he is a “rational irrationalist”.

“... Ars aeterna, what becomes art, is eternal, according to its essence, and this may be the case with the work of Klaus Girnus. His studies made him sensitive to the ambivalence of this topic, but also to its opulence . The supposedly sinful, the absurd - in the end he had to confess to it - is luxuriant. But the light above all light shines through everything, including the dark veils. And with the right mixture of pleasure and horror, horror and pleasure, we will be fascinated by that which, beyond our simple comprehension, is powerful because it testifies to life beyond its all-too-this-worldly limits. "

- Mala Lanzarote, September 17, 2002 Franz Joseph van der Grinten

Exhibitions (selection)

• 1980 "Plantation to the mountain spirits, so spoke Zarathustra or the demon killer", secret exhibition on the Fürstenberg near Xanten.
• 1995 “Memorabilia, Pictures, Sculptures and Objects”, Xanten Regional Museum, Xanten Art Association.
• Since 1999 "Idea and Passion - IDEA QUARTIER", permanent exhibition at Siegfriedstr. 16 in Xanten.
• 2002 “psyche pompen”, Kunsthalle Hangelar.
• 2002 "... you can't bleed in heaven", Museum Schloss Moyland .
• 2003 "4x4", Cubus Kunsthalle Duisburg.
• 2003 “It will be pleasant to rise to the surface, we will see the stars”, “KUHnst” tower Geldern, Kunstverein Gelderland.
• 2006 "Imperial Apparatus", 1st Vienna Biennale, Kunsthalle Meidling, Vienna.
• 2007 “The pictures are getting restless!”, Nikolaus-Stift, Wesel.
• 2008 “Height of Creation”, Wilhelm Anton Hospital, Goch.
• 2009 "Calendar graphics artconnection 1993-2009", Museum Goch, Goch.

literature

• Franz Joseph van der Grinten , Annette Theysen (ed.): Klaus Girnus. "... you cannot bleed in heaven" . Museum Schloss Moyland, Bedburg-Hau 2002. ISBN 393516615X

Web links

• www.klausgirnus.de
• Literature by and about Klaus Girnus in the catalog of the German National Library