Galerie im Taxispalais

Simon Pasieka

green horn

Since the mid 1990s, Simon Pasieka (* 1967 in Kleve/D, lives and works in Paris) has been developing a remarkably idiosyncratic oeuvre. It comprises paintings and large-format drawings using brush and black ink, in which he investigates the interweave of social conditioning as well as pursuing possibilities of viewing and experiencing the world differently. He works in a figurative and narrative way. Pasieka studied in Brunswick and has lived in Paris since 1998, which means that his work has developed at a distance from the hype of the recent German painting scene. Here and there, the content of his work and its realisation in painting comply with that of the star painters: e.g. an unexpected interlocking of interior and exterior space, alternation between abstraction and concrete legible content, and aspects of memory, dream and the irrational coupled with references to history and society. There is also a similarity in the portrayal of man, although this is interpreted in a highly individual manner, in accordance with his own world of ideas.

In highly detailed scenarios, Pasieka’s complex pictorial cosmos tells of youths on the threshold to adulthood, who have ensconced themselves in a fey, natural setting. They come together in pairs or groups with a strange, silent, almost uncanny implicitness: here they rest, ruminate and daydream, invent games, slip into roles, or celebrate weird rituals. His painting with its two-dimensional concept, modulated plastic bodies, statuesque poses and facial expressions, as well as its sharply defined objective world recalls the paintings of New Objectivity and Magical Realism. Here and there, the Surrealism of Max Ernst or Rene Magritte also puts in a brief appearance. Nevertheless, this is a painting anchored in the present day, afflicted by all those questions that can be raised in relation to the medium per se as well as its content.

Pasieka’s utopian pictorial world, which he sums up under the motto “green horn” in this exhibition, resembles a chatroom which the adult world can neither see into nor control, in which – subject to rules and laws of its own – it is possible to reflect on the state of the world and one’s personal perspectives and to experiment with new forms of cohabitation. However, these youths never act entirely outside civilisation, but on its periphery, which is subtly indicated by props like plastic canisters, survival blankets or mirror balls. They construct protective shelters, huts, tents and other provisional dwellings, which should be read in a symbolic way, like the recurrent metaphor of the mirror.

The artist projects parallel worlds in his paintings, leaving unanswered the question of whether their youthful protagonists are voluntary dropouts, displaced persons, individuals forced into isolation, or survivors of mass destruction. While Pasieka’s work focuses on the question of what society offers to today’s youth, simultaneously it calls upon the young generation to integrate its own experimental experiences into society and disseminate the new opportunities presented by them.

The exhibition has been conceived in collaboration with the Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst and the Kunsthalle Göppingen and will show around 40 works from the years 2003 – 2009, almost all of which belong to public or private collections.

Simon Pasieka

Simon Pasieka studied at the Braunschweig University of Art from 1990 – 1995. Selection of exhibitions: 2008 Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt/M.; Kunsthalle Lingen; 2007 Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Remagen; Forum Kunst Rottweil; 2006 Sammlung Frieder Burda, Baden Baden; Galerie Klaus Gerrit Friese, Stuttgart; 2005 Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin; 2003 Galerie manus presse, Stuttgart; 2002 Kunstverein Wolfenbüttel; 1999 Kunstverein Hannover.

Simon Pasieka studierte 1990 – 1995 an der Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig. Auswahl Ausstellungen: 2008 Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt/M.; Kunsthalle Lingen; 2007 Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Remagen; Forum Kunst Rottweil; 2006 Sammlung Frieder Burda, Baden Baden; Galerie Klaus Gerrit Friese, Stuttgart; 2005 Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin; 2003 Galerie manus presse, Stuttgart; 2002 Kunstverein Wolfenbüttel; 1999 Kunstverein Hannover.