The images of Berlin painter Jörn Grothkopp condense their subject matter to its essential features, irrelevant details are deliberately and con¬sistently expunged. Grothkopp’s flat style of painting where the smooth surfaces are never disturbed by the tactile structure of individual brush strokes enhances the condensation brought about by this re¬duction to the essence. The third distinctive feature of Gothkopp’s paint¬ing style is the fact that the forms are frequently veiled by a luminous white, as if they just appeared before us in the fog, or as if we could only see them through misted window panes. Taken together, these ele¬ments effect a dramatic metamorphosis from nature to art, from realism to the artificial. The depicted scenes thus present themselves as if through the glass of an aquarium. This is not just the case in the paint¬ings of Koi frequently painted by Grothkopp, but also in his portraits: the inner life of his subjects remains hidden, secretive, ultimately inde¬cipher¬able. Subjected to this kind of generalization and increased anonymity, the depicted faces effectively withdraw, become less grasp¬able (in both its literal and metaphorical senses). Specific people and tangible objects are transformed into ciphers and similes, and occasion¬ally they even pale in a quite literal way. But paradoxically that is pre¬cise¬ly how they unfold their hypnotic effect, becoming icons, silver screens for our own projections. It is for this reason that Wulf Herzogen¬rath, in his essay in the newly published book on Jörn Grothkopp, very aptly links them to the world of cinema: “The individual images are all stills from a film that is really in movement, a flowing correspondent to the natural situation of the living environment. Panta rhei—all flows and is in movement—cannot only be represented with real movement in the new media, but also occurs in the mind of the beholder when a painter like Grothkopp combines this openness of composition with the subject-matter and merge it to create a plurality within the unity.” In concurrence with the exhibition the Kerber Verlag has just published a new book on Jörn Grothkopp’s work as an artist: Jörn Grothkopp. Kerber Verlag, November 2013. With contributions by Wulf Herzogenrath and Thomas Thiel. German / English, 160 pp. with 127 illustrations, 22 x 28 cm, ISBN 978-3-86678-887-9, € 38.00
