Wolfgang Klähn
Wolfgang Klähn (born October 13, 1929 in Hamburg ; † June 30, 2019 there ) was a German painter , poet and composer . He lived and worked in Hamburg.
life and work
With the mural in the Hamburger Kunsthalle , Klähn began the series of his main works, which trace the laws of living things and, without a direct model of nature, present an evolution of life forms based on the representation of the biological cell, which is parallel to nature. In the course of the development of the pictures, he created plant forms that develop flowers and fruits, from which new - again plant-like - figures emerge. A watercolor in the format 62.5 × 90 cm in the Martin Gosebruch Collection from 1958 with the title Grasping senses as enveloping around becoming illustrates this type of representation.
From the second half of the 1950s, the figure dominated his pictures, which he summarized in groups dancing ecstatically on a symbolic life path of rising and falling. An example from this time is the 73.5 × 102 cm watercolor Ewiges Kreisen in the possession of the Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern . Thanks to the glaze painting, which was consistently applied for the first time in the watercolor technique, the colors are increased to high luminosity and density. The painted layers, which were layers of content-figurative as well as color-painterly layers, penetrate each other and illustrate complex actions. He also used this technique in the landscape watercolors of Sylt, in which he depicts the cycle of nature in the interrelationship of sky, sea and land, also in symbolic exaggeration, but following scientific findings. A rich graphic work (pen, brush) of high spontaneity and expressiveness accompanies both the landscape depictions and the later pictures on biblical subjects.
Quotes
"Every real core forces its true ring."
"Plant, animal: for each of them, the following applies: they live and quiver from their movement from the core to light and glow, they give and weave from enlightenment to illumination - so that is to you moving in equal measure."
"Life is always the same in itself, only its movement changes."
"Life only has a forward, never a back!"
“Urgent like the power in flowing,
the senses cradle me to see;
My blood will / must close
forever. Fill my heart with light, make it long for heaven. "
"All creation is: to make sense to man."
"The real and true work of art is: that one can step into / with it into the holy of holies, may step into it."
About Wolfgang Klähn
"Perhaps here is the strange case of an unseparatedness of art phenomena in a soul that tries to proclaim art itself, still undifferentiated, in a strange tongue-speaking manner."
“There is art among us that combines depth and height, mind and clarity. For this, the name of Wolfgang Klähn should be mentioned, who will go down in history when the day flicker has faded. "
"My God, what is there highlighted and recognizable: the loneliness as well as the frugality of man, the dramatic sky no less than the longing for security."
“There was talk of the painter's self-difficulty, and Klähn's demanding art will be perceived and experienced as a serious one, as it comes up with a full, unfamiliar intellectual and artistic weight. But what jubilation, what lightness of his naturalness, always impartial artist speaks from these pictures and drawings! "
“In November 2000, not even half a year ago, the artist Wolfgang Klähn painted this pen drawing with the title: 'An evangelist sits under the cross'. (…) What is really new about this representation is this figure of the good ambassador, the evangelist under the cross. He dips his quill into an inkwell, he rests his head on his left hand, a halo is indicated, he sees something we cannot see, he looks inward. "
"Wolfgang Klähn devotes himself to the deliberation of human existence. Throughout 60 years of painting, the artist pondered the cyclical nature of life - birth, death, resurrection, and rebirth. His curiosity originating from the study of the biological cell as a teenager, the universal questions Klähn confronts in his explorations prove his work timeless yet contemporary. "
"Never in modern art is there such difficult content as Klähn designed from the start in a modern design language."
“Light colors against a dark background. Hands like plants. Life transparent, but not transparent. This is how we perceive life, this is how we experience the world: as a complex reality that is less and less penetrable - everything is related to everything. "
“Painting in the pictures of Wolfgang Klähn found an astonishing renewal that is believed to have a future. He depicts life in nature without painting it in individual forms. Klähn recognized early on that life had been depicted using the outlines of the body for too long and now began to grasp it from within, from the smallest unit of the biological cell. "
“The central theme in Klähn's pictures is the evolution of life from cells to plants to humans. The artist narrates richly in color and shape, in his later pictures he creates idiosyncratic depictions of biblical themes, such as the resurrection and the stories of Noah, Jonas, the patriarchs and the Psalter. Klähn relies on its very own technique of watercolor and glaze. There are also numerous north German landscapes. "
“Klähn's theme was and remained the divine creation. The world that grows from a single cell, the human being who emerges from hugging lovers, becoming, growing, connecting and passing away in the eternal cycle of life. (...) The painter is one of the rare contemporary artists who have brought the holistic world perception into their own aesthetic form. "
"The equality of the Christian and the Jewish faith is revealed without pathos and pointing fingers."
"In the development of his pictures he never depicted the natural forms directly, but according to their laws let life grow in sensually gripping language and celebrated its preciousness."
“'The Prophet and his world' - that is life, color, fire, spirit - that is Christmas without sentimentality, that is modern and yet recognizable, also the language of art history, without which we would see nothing, recognize nothing."
Solo exhibitions (selection)
- 1953 State Museum, Hanover.
- 1959 Valentien Gallery, Stuttgart.
- 1965 City Museum, Trier.
- 1968 Pfalzgalerie , Kaiserslautern. Märkisches Museum, Witten.
- 1970 Kunsthalle in Kiel . Cathedral Museum, Lübeck. Kunsthalle, Bremen.
- 1971 BAT House, Hamburg. Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart.
- 1978 Pfalzgalerie, Kaiserslautern.
- 1979 Municipal Gallery, Würzburg. Municipal Museum, Braunschweig. Art Association, Bayreuth.
- 1984 Brunswick Cathedral. 1988 Deutsche Genossenschafts-Hypothekenbank, Hamburg.
- 1999 Cappenberg Castle , Selm. Kromsdorf Castle, Weimar.
- 2000 Foundation Schleswig-Holstein State Museums at Gottorf Castle, Schleswig.
- 2003 St. Petri , Hamburg. Schleswig Cathedral. Evangelical Academy Loccum.
- 2005 Diocesan Museum, Bamberg. St. Jakobi, Lübeck
Publications (selection)
- Nature, people, landscape. Schweinfurt Groschenheft, December 1978.
- Images of the Bible. Introduction: Thomas Gädeke. Braunschweig 1982.
- Chants to the Creator God. In honor of Martin Gosebruch, ed. by Frank Steigerwald, Munich 1984, p. 207 ff.
- Eye soul, verses and drawings. Edited by Bernd Seydel. Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-87838-557-9 .
- Sounds like a place to him. Three cyclic seals. Edited and with a comment by Bernd Seydel. Berglen-Kottweil 1994. ISBN 3-930415-00-3
- Bridges to each other…. Friends of Castle Kromsdorf e. V., Thuringian Filmbüro e. V. Bridges to each other ... , Whitsun in Kromsdorf Castle, Kromsdorf 1996.
- Thebios. Edited and annotated by Bernd Seydel. Erfurt 1999. ISBN 3-930415-03-8 .
literature
- Martin Gosebruch: Klähn, Wolfgang. In: Kindler's Painting Lexicon , Volume 3. Zurich 1966, pp. 610 ff. - Numerous other editions.
- Martin Gosebruch: The contempt for the mind in art and science. In: Johannes Schlemmer (Ed.): The contempt of the mind. A new rating . 12 contributions based on a series of programs by Studio Heidelberg Süddeutscher Rundfunk, Munich 1974, p. 88.
- Thomas Gädeke: The power of personal taste. In: Welt am Sonntag , February 22, 2004.
- Martin Gosebruch , Walter Otto: Wolfgang Klähn and the crisis of modernity: essays from five decades with a contribution by Walter Otto. Edited by Thomas Gädeke. Seemann Verlag, Leipzig 2007 ISBN 3-86502-141-7 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Wolfgang Klähn in the catalog of the German National Library
- Circle of Friends for the Promotion of Art eV
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kultur port de News-Port of July 2, 2019: artist Wolfgang Klähn died , accessed on July 7, 2019
- ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , September 16, 2010, page 8.
- ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 7, 2011, page 7.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Klähn, Wolfgang |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter, poet, composer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 13, 1929 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hamburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 30, 2019 |
| Place of death | Hamburg |