Michael Kunze (painter)

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Michael Kunze (* 1961 in Munich ) is a German artist .

life and work

Michael Kunze, son of the archaeologist Erika Kunze-Götte and the musicologist Stefan Kunze , studied between 1985 and 1991 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich . He lives in Berlin.

His first group exhibitions include the 2nd RischArt Prize “Pictures in Passing by ” (October 1 to October 31, 1985), in which the participating artists designed billboards in Munich Marienplatz Train Station , and the 3rd RichArt Prize “Art in Public Spaces” (June 11th to July 24th, 1988), also in Munich.

In the solo exhibitions "Les Messieurs d'Avignon" (2006, Schuermann, Berlin, in parts) and from February 3 to March 18, 2007 at the ZKM Karlsruhe with a total of more than 60 pictures, Kunze showed artists and philosophers, including Ingmar Bergman , Michel Houellebecq , Friedrich Nietzsche and Roman Polański . The title of the exhibition refers to Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) by Pablo Picasso .

With his work, Michael Kunze follows a “shadow line” of modernity. According to his account, they separated at the end of the 19th century. two diametrically opposed perceptions of each other: One began with Paul Cézanne , continued in Cubism and the avant-garde genre that followed, and suggests all the way to Minimal and Concept Art of the 70s of the 20th century. a seemingly historically consistent, linearly understandable and "progressive" modernity. This "official" modernity, so called by Kunze, is taught to this day according to textbooks as the only valid narrative that an age full of tensions and upheavals designed of itself. In contrast to this, Kunze's “shadow line” began with Cezanne's antipodal contemporary Arnold Böcklin , continued with the Pittura Metafisica by Giorgio de Chirico , then with various varieties of Surrealism, and then came in the second half of the 20th century. especially in the European film of the 60s and 70s to a renewed bloom ( Bunuel , Antonioni , Pier Paolo Pasolini , Ingmar Bergman , Werner Herzog , Tarkowski , Fellini etc. - and today again Lars von Trier ). On this subterranean and less tangible side of modernity, there is a labyrinthine, historically interwoven context, sometimes tending to the gloomy, complicated and politically incorrect, which offers no reliable morality and no solution to history - and which above all remains far removed from efforts to harmonize pop culture. The many almost forgotten references that work on this Nietzschean-inspired dark side of modernity cast an unusual light on the trampled mainstream paths, which calls into question some of the things that are taken for granted in an all too orthodox interpretation of history and the present. Kunze tries to pursue this deliberately anachronistic narrative thread in text-based and ambiguous pictorial constructions. Since his exhibition “Les Messieurs d'Avignon” at ZKM Karlsruhe 2007, he has been working on the genealogy of a supposedly anti-modern modernism, including numerous quotations from historical material. Here are transformations of photographic portraits from Gabriele D'Annunzio to Michel Houellebecq, alongside the painterly reinterpretation of historical constellations (e.g. the “Spiegel Interview” between Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Augstein ) and film stills from the aforementioned epoch of Euro-continental film.

Kunze's motive research is also accompanied by a theoretical examination of idealistic and cultural-critical issues. The resulting texts, all of which tend to be compressed and hermetic, appear in part interspersed with his catalogs, but most of them have not yet been published. - Parallel to painting, Michael Kunze has been working on photographic work for years, which is created exclusively in Greece and depicts the particular type of a ruined, abandoned location. The photographs, mostly in black and white, combine idealizing with archaeological-documenting aspects, while at the same time distancing themselves from postcards and scientific photographs. The beginning and end of Europe melt together in a surreally sharp, deeply shaded light to create an absurdly configured scenery in which the fullness of a narrative often turns into the emptiness of an impossible story.

Kunze lives and works in Berlin.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions
  • 1989: "After", Dany Keller , Munich
  • 1990: "One World" (with Nina Hoffmann), Kunstverein Munich
  • 1990: "Tomorrow", Forum Kunst Rottweil
  • 1991: "Stay and Approach", Dany Keller Gallery, Munich
  • 1991: Galerie Ursula Walbröl, Düsseldorf
  • 1992: "Palinodie / Syntax", Seiqueir Gallery, Madrid
  • 1993: "Spiegel / Kern", Galerie Thomas Rehbein, Cologne
  • 1994: The Corridor , Reykjavík
  • 1998: Goethe Institute , Rotterdam
  • 1998: Goethe Institute (with Nikolaus List), Brussels
  • 2007: "Les Messieurs d'Avignon", Museum for New Art , ZKM Karlsruhe , Karlsruhe
  • 2007: “Was ist Metaphysik”, COMA Center for Opinions in Music and Art, Berlin
  • 2009: "After Tsalal", COMA Center for Opinions in Music and Art, Berlin
  • 2010: "Tick", Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
  • 2011: “Rupert's words, David's voice”, Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam, NL
  • 2012: "Schwarzorange", Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
  • 2012: “Studies on the Development of Impatience”, Galerie Nicolas Krupp, Basel
  • 2013: Halcyon days , Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
Group exhibitions

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Short biography at the Contemporary Fine Arts gallery
  2. ↑ 2. RischArt_Preis: Pictures in passing.
  3. ↑ 3rd RischArt_Prize 1988: Art in Public Space.
  4. ↑ Michael Kunze. Les Messieurs d'Avignon.
personal data
SURNAME Kunze, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist
DATE OF BIRTH 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich