Peter Schmersal

Peter Schmersal (born November 5, 1952 in Wuppertal ) is a German painter who lives and works in his hometown and in Berlin . His work is characterized by a stylistic variety that alternates between detailed painterly execution and reductive moments.

Live and act

Schmersal studied graphic design in Wuppertal from 1971 to 1975 and then worked as a graphic designer. From 1978 he dealt with painting . From 1980 to 1982 Schmersal was a guest student with Raimer Jochims at the Frankfurt Städelschule . He then spent a year and a half in Paris and then at different places of residence in Germany.

In the mid-1980s, mainly still lifes, landscapes and architectural depictions were created. The motifs from this period already have a certain casualness about them; they appear in fleeting snapshots that are characterized by a fragmentary execution. The still lifes show classic subjects: flowers, fruits, dead animals and everyday objects such as bottles, serviettes, stools or tables. As in the years that followed, the choice of motif is also based on historical models, for example Claude Monet's grain rack, in order to determine in variations to what extent a motif is artistically exhausted (see Heuhaufen, 1986, and Heuballen, 1989). Schmersal is therefore concerned with exploring technical and visual possibilities in painting, which is enhanced by his contemporary handwriting: “Why representational painting? No visual concept, no design in the sense of arranging or voting; no theoretical or optical idea. The object is the focal point, ”says the artist. “What kind of objects? Theoretically, all objects are equal, there are no values. The decisive factor is the object as texture, as a material appearance in a certain context or relationship. "

At the beginning of the 1990s, in addition to urban landscapes, there was primarily a discussion of portraits, which are also often fragmented, not only frontally, but often also with an unusual top or bottom view (cf. Andreas Bär, 1996, and Caroline Rudorff, 1999) , up to a detailed physiognomic representation, for example of the mouth and eye areas (cf. the two small-format works Mund / Auge / Jerry Mitchell, 1996). Even with the numerous self-portraits, Schmersal is not interested in a homogeneous image, but in an approach to the numerous possibilities of self-perception. Here he seems to be implementing what Johann Caspar Lavater already described in his Physiognomische Fragmenten (1775–1778) as a “dissecting” second look. Especially in his portraits, Schmersal often changes the image formats, which accentuate the contours of the face, especially in the curves of the oval - a variant that is reminiscent of the historical appearance of portraits, the shape of the medallion.

Since the beginning of the millennium, Schmersal's choice of motifs could hardly have been more heterogeneous, isolated fixed points in the midst of a multitude of other images, whose implementation would also have been possible. When they are emphasized as painting, they have a very specific effect: the medium changes the view. Due to the very balanced lack of connection between individual motifs (cf. Seil, Karton, 2010, and Tüte, Seil, 2012) Schmersal juxtaposes the most varied types of authorship, style, genre and context of exploitation. As in Pop Art, colors are contrasted with one another, sometimes even sprayed in graffiti style (see Amor der Honigdieb and I, 2011), then art historical models from Baldung Grien to Velàzquez to Gustav Courbet are transformed into contemporary painting ( See Der behexte Stallknecht, 2009, and Countess Károly, 2005) or, more generally, the richness of detail in painterly reduction, monochrome areas of color juxtaposed with roughly executed hatching. In terms of motif, there are still no specific self-imposed requirements, but the figure, still life and landscape still dominate (cf. Baumstumpf, Unterholz, 2011). Architectural elements, on the other hand, no longer play a major role in the pictorial repertoire of recent years.

In his artistic exploration, Peter Schmersal points out that painting acquires meaning through the interaction between color matter and image carrier. He is of the opinion “that the content of the subject matter of the picture depends directly on its material texture. That is an aspect that I find too little taken into account in the general painting discourse. ”Schmersal is interested in pictorial-intuitive intelligence in relation to its reflection in the collective pool. For him, this is where the original topos of metamorphosis lies, according to the statement by Henri Matisse, according to which the meaning of an artist depends on the signs with which he extends art in order to make it more effective in this consciousness.

Exhibitions and catalogs (selection)

Solo exhibitions

• 2000: Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal; Dipinti. Opere recenti, Galerie Karsten Greve , Milan; Portrait, landscape, still life, Galerie Michael Schultz, Berlin
• 2001: New works, Karsten Greve Gallery, Cologne
• 2002: Horst Schuler Gallery, Düsseldorf; Peintures récentes, Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris; Museum Baden, Solingen
• 2003: New work, Karsten Greve Gallery, St. Moritz
• 2004: Painting, Karsten Greve Gallery, Cologne; Artists' Association Malkasten, Düsseldorf; Flowers Gallery, London
• 2005: Horst Schuler Gallery, Düsseldorf
• 2006: Recent Paintings, Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris; Mensch, Kunstverein Lippe, Lippische Gesellschaft für Kunst e. V., Detmold; Gallery Karsten Greve, Cologne
• 2007: Painting, Galerie Karsten Greve, St. Moritz
• 2007: Painting, Galerie Karsten Greve, St. Moritz
• 2010: Horst Schuler Gallery, Düsseldorf
• 2011: Painting, municipal museums, Jena art collection
• 2012: Painting, Gallery of the City of Remscheid
• 2013: Franz Paludetto, Castello di Rivera, Turin
• 2015: Flowers Gallery, London; Art Museum Solingen (with Holger Bär)

Group exhibitions

• 1995: The Adventure of Painting, Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia, Düsseldorf, Württemberg Art Association, Stuttgart
• 1996: Pittura, Franz Paludetto, Castello di Rivera, Turin
• 1997: works on paper. Contemporary art by German artists, Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, National MK Čiurlionis Art Museum, Kaunas
• 2000: Face to Face. Facial expressions - gestures - emotions, Leverkusen City Museum, Morsbroich Castle
• 2002: Eight positions for drawing, Museum Baden, Solingen
• 2004: Small Is Beautiful XXII, Flowers Gallery, London
• 2006: New painting. Acquisitions 2002–2005, Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden
• 2007: Acchrochage, Galerie Karsten Greve , Cologne
• 2008: Acchrochage, Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris; Small Is Beautiful XXVI, Flowers Gallery, London
• 2010: Still Life, Margarete Roeder Gallery, New York
• 2011: I - artist portraits, Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal
• 2014: Small Is Beautiful XXIX, Flowers Gallery, London
• 2015: The casualness of things, Overbeck Society. Lübeck

Catalogs

• Peter Schmersal - painting, ed. by Oliver Zybok, exhib.-cat. Gallery of the City of Remscheid, Ostfildern 2013
• Peter Schmersal - painting, ed. by Erik Stephan, exhib.cat. Art collection Jena, Gera 2011
• New painting. Acquisitions 2002–2005, exhibition cat. Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, 2006
• Face to face. Mimic - Signs - Emotions, ed. by Oliver Zybok, exhib.-cat. City Museum Leverkusen Morsbroich Castle, Leipzig 2000
• Peter Schmersal, exhib.-cat. Galerie Karsten Greve , Cologne, 1999
• Works on paper. Contemporary art by German artists, ed. by Eva-Maria Schoofs-Kentner & Oliver Zybok, exhib.-cat. From the Heydt Museum, Wuppertal, National MK Čiurlionis Art Museum, Kaunas, Wuppertal 1997
• The Adventure of Painting, ed. by Martin Hentschel & Raimund Stecker, exhib.-cat. Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia, Düsseldorf,
• Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, 1995
• Peter Schmersal. Painting, peinture, paintings, exhibition cat. Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, 1990

honors and awards

• 1993: von der Heydt culture award (sponsorship award)

Web links

• Homepage of Peter Schmersal
• Peter Schmersal on kunstaspekte.de
• Pictures by Schmersal at the Flowers East London gallery

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Udo Garweg: Wuppertal artist directory . Ed .: Von der Heydt-Museum. Wuppertal 2000, ISBN 3-89202-042-6 , p. 346 .