Paul Schwer
Blast 4
21.08.2005

Color in space—that’s how one could characterize the work of Düsseldorf painter Paul Schwer in a nutshell. Whether stretched or hung, in strips or as fields, as paintings or installations, Paul Schwer has been bringing color into space for over 10 years, reaching for the third dimension as a painter. Based on constructed constellations, he creates physical, sculptural color experiences. In addition to canvas paintings, he creates room installations, which he has presented in many places in industrial halls, stairwells and foyers, in museums and galleries between Brussels and Oslo. From his own photographs, in which he attempts to capture a fleeting moment, painted images become variations on the themes of color, light, and mobility. In his paintings and installations, projected pedestrians and vehicles become color gradients, a play of colors, and color variation becomes a sign of mobility. In the installation, however, the artist questions not only the effect but also the means of painting by dissolving it almost completely: the image carriers are transparent, the paintwork succinct, without attempting to express any emotional state, and the pigment adheres only temporarily, like a breath on fogged-up windows.

Paul Schwer’s installations refer to the exhibition venues. Cloths are stretched or hung. Glass plates are leaned against the wall and, like the colored cloths, serve as both projection and color surfaces. Artificial and natural light sources ensure that the color spreads throughout the room, charging it with an aura as a context, as a projection surface, and thus making it physically tangible. The dream of immersing oneself in color becomes reality in Paul Schwer’s works. Surrounded by color and acting as a projection surface in the space, the viewer also becomes part of the whole. Painting thus becomes a spatial experience, the space a surreal landscape of color, constantly changing with the shift in light. In addition to a series of oil paintings, the Kunsthalle Bremerhaven will also feature glass plates and color tensions that will span the main room.

Paul Schwer was born in Hornberg in the Black Forest in 1951. After studying medicine and working as a doctor, he studied at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf in the 1980s and subsequently received various scholarships abroad, including in Paris and Trondheim in Norway. After numerous solo and group exhibitions in the Cologne-Düsseldorf area and the Ruhr region, for example at the Kunstverein Oberhausen, the Niederrheinischer Kunstverein, the Brühler Kunstverein, the Kunsthaus Essen, the Museum Schloß Moyland, and the Kunstverein Solingen, the exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bremerhaven is the first presentation of his work in northern Germany. With this exhibition, the Kunstverein continues its series of young artists from the West, which in recent years has featured Mathias Lanfer, Andreas Ostermeyer, Katharina Grosse, and Andreas Bee at the Kunsthalle. In this context, we would like to draw attention to the simultaneous group exhibition “Here we go” at the Städtische Galerie Gladbeck, which features works by Paul Schwer alongside sculptures by Mathias Lanfer and Andreas Bee, among others.

Curated by Klaus Becké.