Robert Kraiss: Goya Deep / Goya Flat
Past exhibition
-
-
Characterized by an experimental approach to drawing using a wide range of art-historical references, styles, and subject matter, the art of Robert Kraiss is imbued with contradictions. With a general skepticism towards his chosen content, the works in Goya Deep / Goya Flat draw from a vast repertoire of images culled from iconographic masterworks, trashy pulp magazines and superhero comic books in a creative exchange that simultaneously moves between ironic distancing and reverence.
The artist's method of engaging with both high and low subject matter to serve as a catalyst for experimentation finds its roots in the work of postwar German artists, such as Sigmar Polke, whose radical departure from traditional art materials draws parallels to Kraiss' innovative mechanical drawing processes. The artist employs various distancing techniques -- rotary power sanders, colored pencils attached to hand-held drills -- which recall the repetitive nature of commercial production and question the notion of individuality implicit in the medium of drawing (recently, the artist has begun pushing these notions of authorship with the "use" of assistants for drawing.) Ironically, these deliberately automated processes result in a panorama of colored marks that are highly individualistic, expressive and strikingly delicate.
This reliance on experimentation and improvisational method also play a central role in the artist's musical compositions that accompany this exhibition. Often in collaboration with other artists or musicians, Kraiss' use of synthesized and computer generated noise combined with traditional and unconventional musical instruments are important to the artist's practice. Kraiss states that his explorations into sound are a "clear reference to maybe my most central source of inspiration, and probably the most important." This singular methodology, employed across very different mediums, are a result of Kraiss' fascination with a kind of mechanized poeticism, and a considered interplay between automation and authenticity. -
Untitled (The Duel I Series, Leonor Fini & Clovis Trouille), 2018
colored pencil on paper10 1/4 x 14 in26 x 35.5 cm -
untitled (Melancholy), 2021
pencil, colored pencil on paper100 1/2 x 74 3/4 in255 x 190 cm -
-
-
Untitled (Portrait), 2022
colored pencil on paper13 3/4 x 10 1/4 in
35 x 26 cm -
-
Untitled (Neon Goya I), 2022
day-glow watercolor on paper13 3/4 x 10 1/4 in35 x 26 cm -
-
-
Vacation (Trimmed)
2021 © Die Bäume & Stefanie PoppCollaborative music video by Stefanie Popp & Die Bäume (Robert Kraiss & Florian Gass) -
-
Untitled (Selfportrait as Gilbert and George), 2019
colored pencil, acrylic on paper102 1/4 x 78 3/4 in260 x 200 cm -
-
-
Untitled (Bee-swarm), 2022
colored pencil on paper10 1/4 x 13 3/4 in
26 x 35 cm -
Die Bäume: Live Performance at Kunstverein Schwerin
2021 © Die Bäume & Kunstverein SchwerinDie Bäume (Florian Gass & Robert Kraiss)
18 SEPT 2021, Cologne
KUNSTVEREIN FÜR MECKLENBURG UND VORPOMMERIN IN SCHWERIN
[ART ASSOCIATION FOR MECKLENBURG AND POMERANIA IN SCHWERIN]
-
-
Untitled (Alice in Daily Routine / Alice in Wonderland II), 2019
colored pencil on paper102 1/4 x 78 3/4 in260 x 200 cm -
DIE BÄUME: ROBERT KRAISS & FLORIAN GASS
The Cologne band DIE BÄUME are a meeting of opposites. Since 1994, the psychiatrist and pain doctor Florian Gass and artist Robert Kraiss have been meeting weekly for recording sessions. Their music is based on non-competence-centred improvisation, with touch points to noise, punk and traditional ethnic music. It's a free approach. An attempt to explore extremes; experimental unprotected exposure. In the course of the musical work, there is a mixture of ironically commented ethno-kitsch and 'authentic' world music up to a primitive synthesis or as Stefanie Popp writes: "...from the surging feeling of the bloodstream in the veins or perhaps the digestion in the intestine. Singing from deep inside. Like the unconscious that has become sound. Or the free-flowing inner pulp." -
-
Stefanie Popp: Folk Song (K.B.)
2017 © Die Bäume & Stefanie PoppFootage filmed on a hike over Lago di Como, by German artist Stephanie Popp. Music by Die Bäume stefaniepopp.com/ Die Bäume: robertkraiss.de/musik -
FOOLSCLOWNS
2017 © DIE BÄUME & STEFANIE POPPFootage by Stefanie Popp Music by Die Bäume (Florian Gass and Robert Kraiss) stefaniepopp.com/ Die Bäume: robertkraiss.de/musik
-
-