Anselm Baumann (* 1958) is a sculptor with a preference for the interplay of space and image. Therefore his preferred art form is relief. This opens up the range for him to develop his art between physical-sensual modulation and pictorial effect from the surface. An early background for this is his childhood in the late baroque monastery church of St. Peter in the Black Forest. In the sacral-illusionistic splendid architecture of putti, gold ornaments, plaster columns, sculptures and frescoes, he turned the notes on the organ over to his father on Sundays.
It is easy to imagine that the space of the Goldstein Gallery, including the paintings on the old walls of the former delicatessen, exerts a very special attraction on the artist. It is the combination of the functional cosmos of a butcher’s shop made of hooks, tiled walls or stable counter tops on the one hand and elaborate decorations in favour of the “exquisiteness” of the food on the other hand. The fact that today’s gallery rooms served as wine taverns even in the very past, where Städel students and their professors such as Max Beckmann used to stop for a bite to eat, additionally invites the place to enjoy art tradition and the slope.
It is easy to imagine that the space of the Goldstein Gallerie, including the paintings on the old walls of the former delicatessen, exerts a very special attraction on the artist. It is the combination of the functional cosmos of a butcher’s shop made of hooks, tiled walls or stable counter tops on the one hand and elaborate decorations in favour of the “exquisiteness” of the food on the other hand. The fact that today’s gallery rooms served as wine taverns even in the very past, where Städel students and their professors such as Max Beckmann used to stop for a bite to eat, additionally invites the place to enjoy art tradition and the slope.
Anselm Baumann builds on this. For the installation of his relief works, he chose the wall between the wall paintings with the passage to the bar behind it (Fig. 2). A wall through which it is possible to walk, and which is thus particularly well suited in its spatiality for the perception of the three-dimensional relief effect. At the same time, it is the wall opposite the shop window and thus completely visible from the outside. By looking through the glass pane, the relief becomes a two-dimensional image with depth effect. At the same time, the display of the shop window draws the viewer’s gaze inwards, allowing him or her to be addressed from close up by the art objects on display and their refined appearance. The artist uses the side in between to hang up his hook formations. In their functionality they are reminiscent of meat hooks. In Anselm Baumann’s artistic cosmos, however, they are above all sculpturally stylized formulations that thematize the fact that art objects are attached to the walls by means of these – usually invisible – functional elements in order to enable the viewing of pictorial works. In order to symbolize the interaction between hook and art, Anselm Baumann positions a constellation of relief and hook (Fig. 5) near the display window, thus creating a transition to the interior space of the Goldstein Galerie.
Anselm Baumann titled his exhibition “Delikatessen”. Singular porcelain objects made of different surfaces and bizarre structures with the appearance of exotic sponges, idiosyncratic plant treasures or colour-flowing shell formations in combination with vessels (Figs. 5 and 6). They are presented on unique tile plates, which are impressions of common cardboard packaging material (Fig. 3), deliberately arranged to be a feast for the eyes. On the one hand, it is the pleasure of modelling and glazing out of the process of porcelain production – in analogy to cooking – that appeals to the window dresser here. On the other hand, it is the constructive plate elements that lend an ordering and controlling structure to the free play of infinite forms and condense into the idea of appetizing and neat and tidy displays in delicatessen shops.
As much as sensual enjoyment is addressed, this is only one aspect of Anselm Baumann’s art. The sensuality in its connection to pleasure is rather only one element of a much more far-reaching artistic assertion. In essence, this states that art, in order to unfold its effect in its relevance, cannot be received as information via images, but only via the relationship to the actual physical presence of the viewer. For the sculptor’s thesis, the criticism of the medial-digital two-dimensional dominance of the reproduced and thus altered image in format, texture and colour forms the foil. With his work, which is oriented towards the art form of relief, he seeks to justify the reception of art first and foremost in the uniqueness of the physical-sensual experience as a highly differentiated phenomenon bound up with objects and materials. And it is only in the moment of the confrontation with the effect of the real-present object by means of the totality of our sensual-receptive perception that the meaning of art is able to take place for him, or only from here does it take its course and form its existential standard.
The exhibition “Delikatessen” is committed to this artistic approach. The place in its former connection to the “delicatessen”, in order to enable unmistakable experiences of selected specialities for the physical well-being, becomes the occasion for the artist to assert the uniqueness of the art experience with his reliefs of plaster, porcelain, clay and concrete.
Anselm Baumann plays on the middle wall by using two different types of reliefs (Fig. 2 and 3). On the one hand, the entire wall is covered with 48 white plaster tiles to form a surface. These are imprints of stretch corrugated cardboard, the popular packaging material for fragile goods such as porcelain, glass and preferably wine bottles. They form the base for a further 15 reliefs of different sizes, which are unique in their quality (Fig. 1-4). This creates a layering of two different types of work groups presented one above the other. If the material of the underground relief is plaster, the front reliefs are made of the higher quality porcelain. They are presented as individual elements on the total surface of plaster tiles (Figs. 2 and 3).
Thus two materials are used, each of which plays its own role in the tradition of combining art and food culture. If we are familiar with plaster in the art context of ornamental wall designs and stucco modelling, we enjoy above all selected foodstuffs by means of the presentation of the so-called “white gold” as tableware. While plaster was used in Baroque culture as a cheap building material for the illusion of splendour, at the same time the princely courts of Europe had to fight hard to find the recipe for the production of the wafer-thin transparent porcelain. Anselm Baumann thus opens a puzzle game between two materials and their contexts in the opposition of material value and appearance in the meaning of two kinds of surface effects on the borderline between fact and fake.
Having introduced porcelain as a new material in his relief production alongside plaster, concrete, clay, wood or epoxy resin in recent years, Anselm Baumann was attracted by its transparency, fragility and the basic colour white. These are all properties that on the one hand allow him to tie in with the constructive tradition of the modern age and on the other hand simultaneously release independent developments from the firing stages and glazes through the various production processes. The results are a surprise. For the play of form and colour that goes hand in hand with this, the objects of art process in the sense of the artistic practice of calculated chance into something that is not always foreseeable despite the artist’s experience. The results of this interplay between the shaping and individuality of the fragile material porcelain, which tends to splinter attractively, both chemically and physically, are an essential pleasure for the artist with a penchant for subtlety.
Eva Linhart, art historian
event:
Monday, April 16, 6 p.m. Chouchou (at Club Michel)
29 March – 28 April 2018
Delicatessen and Anselm Baumann
Anselm Baumann (* 1958) is a sculptor with a preference for the interplay of space and image. Therefore his preferred art form is relief. This opens up the range for him to develop his art between physical-sensual modulation and pictorial effect from the surface. An early background for this is his childhood in the late baroque monastery church of St. Peter in the Black Forest. In the sacral-illusionistic splendid architecture of putti, gold ornaments, plaster columns, sculptures and frescoes, he turned the notes on the organ over to his father on Sundays.
It is easy to imagine that the space of the Goldstein Gallery, including the paintings on the old walls of the former delicatessen, exerts a very special attraction on the artist. It is the combination of the functional cosmos of a butcher’s shop made of hooks, tiled walls or stable counter tops on the one hand and elaborate decorations in favour of the “exquisiteness” of the food on the other hand. The fact that today’s gallery rooms served as wine taverns even in the very past, where Städel students and their professors such as Max Beckmann used to stop for a bite to eat, additionally invites the place to enjoy art tradition and the slope.
It is easy to imagine that the space of the Goldstein Gallerie, including the paintings on the old walls of the former delicatessen, exerts a very special attraction on the artist. It is the combination of the functional cosmos of a butcher’s shop made of hooks, tiled walls or stable counter tops on the one hand and elaborate decorations in favour of the “exquisiteness” of the food on the other hand. The fact that today’s gallery rooms served as wine taverns even in the very past, where Städel students and their professors such as Max Beckmann used to stop for a bite to eat, additionally invites the place to enjoy art tradition and the slope.
Anselm Baumann builds on this. For the installation of his relief works, he chose the wall between the wall paintings with the passage to the bar behind it (Fig. 2). A wall through which it is possible to walk, and which is thus particularly well suited in its spatiality for the perception of the three-dimensional relief effect. At the same time, it is the wall opposite the shop window and thus completely visible from the outside. By looking through the glass pane, the relief becomes a two-dimensional image with depth effect. At the same time, the display of the shop window draws the viewer’s gaze inwards, allowing him or her to be addressed from close up by the art objects on display and their refined appearance. The artist uses the side in between to hang up his hook formations. In their functionality they are reminiscent of meat hooks. In Anselm Baumann’s artistic cosmos, however, they are above all sculpturally stylized formulations that thematize the fact that art objects are attached to the walls by means of these – usually invisible – functional elements in order to enable the viewing of pictorial works. In order to symbolize the interaction between hook and art, Anselm Baumann positions a constellation of relief and hook (Fig. 5) near the display window, thus creating a transition to the interior space of the Goldstein Galerie.
Anselm Baumann titled his exhibition “Delikatessen”. Singular porcelain objects made of different surfaces and bizarre structures with the appearance of exotic sponges, idiosyncratic plant treasures or colour-flowing shell formations in combination with vessels (Figs. 5 and 6). They are presented on unique tile plates, which are impressions of common cardboard packaging material (Fig. 3), deliberately arranged to be a feast for the eyes. On the one hand, it is the pleasure of modelling and glazing out of the process of porcelain production – in analogy to cooking – that appeals to the window dresser here. On the other hand, it is the constructive plate elements that lend an ordering and controlling structure to the free play of infinite forms and condense into the idea of appetizing and neat and tidy displays in delicatessen shops.
As much as sensual enjoyment is addressed, this is only one aspect of Anselm Baumann’s art.
The sensuality in its connection to pleasure is rather only one element of a much more far-reaching artistic assertion. In essence, this states that art, in order to unfold its effect in its relevance, cannot be received as information via images, but only via the relationship to the actual physical presence of the viewer. For the sculptor’s thesis, the criticism of the medial-digital two-dimensional dominance of the reproduced and thus altered image in format, texture and colour forms the foil. With his work, which is oriented towards the art form of relief, he seeks to justify the reception of art first and foremost in the uniqueness of the physical-sensual experience as a highly differentiated phenomenon bound up with objects and materials. And it is only in the moment of the confrontation with the effect of the real-present object by means of the totality of our sensual-receptive perception that the meaning of art is able to take place for him, or only from here does it take its course and form its existential standard.
The exhibition “Delikatessen” is committed to this artistic approach. The place in its former connection to the “delicatessen”, in order to enable unmistakable experiences of selected specialities for the physical well-being, becomes the occasion for the artist to assert the uniqueness of the art experience with his reliefs of plaster, porcelain, clay and concrete.
Anselm Baumann plays on the middle wall by using two different types of reliefs (Fig. 2 and 3). On the one hand, the entire wall is covered with 48 white plaster tiles to form a surface. These are imprints of stretch corrugated cardboard, the popular packaging material for fragile goods such as porcelain, glass and preferably wine bottles. They form the base for a further 15 reliefs of different sizes, which are unique in their quality (Fig. 1-4). This creates a layering of two different types of work groups presented one above the other. If the material of the underground relief is plaster, the front reliefs are made of the higher quality porcelain. They are presented as individual elements on the total surface of plaster tiles (Figs. 2 and 3).
Thus two materials are used, each of which plays its own role in the tradition of combining art and food culture. If we are familiar with plaster in the art context of ornamental wall designs and stucco modelling, we enjoy above all selected foodstuffs by means of the presentation of the so-called “white gold” as tableware. While plaster was used in Baroque culture as a cheap building material for the illusion of splendour, at the same time the princely courts of Europe had to fight hard to find the recipe for the production of the wafer-thin transparent porcelain. Anselm Baumann thus opens a puzzle game between two materials and their contexts in the opposition of material value and appearance in the meaning of two kinds of surface effects on the borderline between fact and fake.
Having introduced porcelain as a new material in his relief production alongside plaster, concrete, clay, wood or epoxy resin in recent years, Anselm Baumann was attracted by its transparency, fragility and the basic colour white. These are all properties that on the one hand allow him to tie in with the constructive tradition of the modern age and on the other hand simultaneously release independent developments from the firing stages and glazes through the various production processes. The results are a surprise. For the play of form and colour that goes hand in hand with this, the objects of art process in the sense of the artistic practice of calculated chance into something that is not always foreseeable despite the artist’s experience. The results of this interplay between the shaping and individuality of the fragile material porcelain, which tends to splinter attractively, both chemically and physically, are an essential pleasure for the artist with a penchant for subtlety.
Eva Linhart, art historian
event:
Monday, April 16, 6 p.m.
Chouchou
(at Club Michel)