Gregor Gleiwitz
XYLETEN

SETAREH Berlin is pleased to announce Gregor Gleiwitz's third solo exhibition XYLETEN. At the start of the pandemic, Gregor Gleiwitz painted large-format canvases. Measuring three by five meters, each was a world unto itself. For the painter, this was perhaps the culmination of ten years of intensive work; in any case, this was followed by a form of collapse and a process of recentering, much in keeping with the cultural atmosphere of those months. In the end, Gleiwitz left the studio—last July to be exact. He started to plunge into the contemplation of nature. It was in plein air painting with watercolor pads that he found what he was looking for, though not without subjecting his sketches to a process of transformation. As dusk fell, he returned to the studio. An integral part of Gleiwitz’s new paintings is the lived, prolonged contemplation of each day.

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In Gleiwitz’s new paintings, the landscape assumes a very particular role. It is neither picturesque nor heroic; rather, it becomes a laboratory for the exploration of unknown spaces. The tranquil gaze enables the artist to reconsider areas that sometimes appear trivial— and the longer Gleiwitz looks, the more his gaze is transformed. He absorbs different dimensions, as well as the quality of hues, materiality, weight.

In Gleiwitz’s new paintings, the landscape assumes a very particular role. It is neither picturesque nor heroic; rather, it becomes a laboratory for the exploration of unknown spaces. The tranquil gaze enables the artist to reconsider areas that sometimes appear trivial—and the longer Gleiwitz looks, the more his gaze is transformed. He absorbs different dimensions, as well as the quality of hues, materiality, weight.

In Gleiwitz’s new paintings, the landscape assumes a very particular role. It is neither picturesque nor heroic; rather, it becomes a laboratory for the exploration of unknown spaces. The tranquil gaze enables the artist to reconsider areas that sometimes appear trivial— and the longer Gleiwitz looks, the more his gaze is transformed. He absorbs different dimensions, as well as the quality of hues, materiality, weight.

In a subsequent stage, the painter unfurls once again the time spent outdoors. The vital processes of transformation take place in the studio. Gleiwitz paints on a canvas that is stapled to the wall; he paints through the wall, as it were, so as to reach another space. Needless to say that an old metaphor from art history comes into play at this point—namely that of painting as a window, painting as a space of illusion.

Gregor Gleiwitz
21.04.2021, 2021
Oil on canvas
256.8 x 199.3 cm

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Gregor Gleiwitz
04.03.2022, 2022
Oil on canvas
263.2 x 195.5 cm

SOLD

Gregor Gleiwitz
16.03.2022, 2022
Oil on canvas
268.1 x 194.4 cm

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Gregor Gleiwitz
30.06.2020, 2020
Oil on canvas
265 x 200 cm

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Gregor Gleiwitz
07.02.2022, 2022
Oil on canvas
260 x 198 cm

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Gregor Gleiwitz
30.07.2020, 2020
Oil on canvas
257.5 x 200 cm

SOLD

Gregor Gleiwitz
11.03.2022, 2022
Oil on canvas
151.4 x 113.2 cm

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Gregor Gleiwitz
28.04.2021, 2021
Oil on canvas
218 x 159 cm

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When the painter, born in 1977, was still an art student, the big names were Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen. They had something like an overarching narrative for painting; it was understood that you could only paint in an ironic way, as if modernism were saying goodbye with a sad wink before the final drop of the curtain.

But the curtain did not fall. It simply became apparent that, going forward, painting should be thought of in the plural, that it was essential to consider what painting meant once the genre was exposed to other media’s pressure to innovate. Perhaps a whole new sense of freedom began to unfold because of it, wherein painters no longer had to pursue the medium’s pertinence or narratives.