Helene Appel’s paintings deal with things that often go unnoticed – everyday objects, fleeting traces, incidental phenomena. An envelope, a puddle of water, fish bones, dust: these are motifs that we encounter in life without paying much attention to them. In Appel’s work, however, they receive quiet attention – a painterly concentration that lends space and weight to the unspectacular.

The title of the exhibition, ‘Correspondence’, opens up several levels of meaning. Literally, it refers to correspondence – to writing, sending and receiving messages. As simple as an envelope may seem, it stands for the attempt to establish a connection. But ‘Correspondence’ can also be understood as ‘correspondence’ or ‘relationship’: as a subtle interplay between things, meanings and perception. In Appel’s pictures, the visible corresponds with the inner, the real with the painterly, the fleeting with the permanent.

In an age in which pictures are often loud and overloaded, Appel’s paintings seem like counter-designs. They do not demand a spectacle, but offer a pause. Her motifs appear life-size and with the utmost precision – and yet it is never about photorealistic effects alone. Rather, it is about the presence of an object, its existence in space, its form, surface and materiality. Appel’s painting style is calm, attentive, almost contemplative. She approaches each object individually, without formulaic repetition – an approach that is strongly reminiscent of the artistic attitude of New Objectivity, but at the same time is underpinned by a quiet, contemporary sensibility.

Appel’s work can also be located in terms of art history – not as a mere echo, but as a conscious continuation. Her attention to detail is reminiscent of 17th century Dutch still life painting, in which banal objects often served as carriers of silent symbolism. However, unlike the vanitas paintings of the time, Appel’s work lacks a moral. Her paintings do not tell of transience – but of existence itself. Of seeing. Of lingering.

‘Correspondence’ is therefore also a dialogue: between object and viewer, between painting and reality, between surface and meaning. Appel’s works are not images – they are encounters. Each painting is an invitation to get involved. To look closely. To slow down.

In her first solo exhibition at VAN HORN, Helene Appel presents a body of work that is characterised by restraint – and this is precisely where its power unfolds. Her painting speaks quietly – but it remains.

Reimann remembers the beginning of Milos Forman’s film Hair (1979) – the song Aquarius, which left her with a lasting feeling of hope, freedom and community. A promise. A departure. She quotes:

„…Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind’s true liberation
Aquarius! Aquarius!“

Just as the song creates a utopian image of the world, Reimann’s works also tell of possible futures – not loudly, not boldly, but through allusions, questions and connections. Works such as The Fool (on the hill), A Midsummernight’s Dream or Melt (weeping men) cannot be clearly categorised. They oscillate between seriousness and irony, between tribute and reconsideration. Some seem like dream sequences, others like snatched scenes from history, viewed through the filter of the now.

In the exhibition, we encounter the Queen of the Night (sitting in the backseat of my Cadillac) – a figure between opera and street, between glamour and everyday life. And the work Mae (Homage to Richter) makes no secret of her artistic engagement with role models, with history, with painting itself.

Behind all this lies a genuine interest in people – in our feelings, contradictions, masks, injuries and possibilities. Reimann looks closely. And she looks further. ‘Hommages, melancholy, irony and hope … seeing new, different and further,’ she says herself.

Perhaps the Age of Aquarius does not begin on a specific date. Perhaps it begins within us – with an idea, an image, an encounter.

Föttinger lets his Trojans circulate in the form of an artistic work that would be underestimated by anyone who thought it was ‘just’ furniture – because the artist’s favourite formats like to take the form of lamps, illuminated wall boards, illuminated tables and stools or – his main metier – radiant bar ensembles that create their very own atmospheric conditions and where tea and champagne taste good.

It is very appropriate to understand Föttinger’s objects and installations, which balance beauty and purpose, as ‘social media’: They only really develop their artistic value when they are put to use – whether as a large bar or a small lamp – in an ideally communal way, aimed at exchange. (In this respect, Föttinger’s approach is not so far removed from Brecht’s hammer. It’s just that he has voluntarily „pulled the tooth“ of the dogmatic, do-gooder attitude of someone who always knows best what is good for everyone else. And the mirror is also on board, from which I like to have it reflected back to me that perhaps I’m not as great as always assumed – provided I look into it critically enough).

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Sources:
– Lyrics from the musical and film ‘Hair’ (1979), music: Galt MacDermot, lyrics: Gerome Ragni and James Rado
– Wikipedia article on the Age of Aquarius: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassermannzeitalter
– Old Farmer’s Almanac: https://www.almanac.com/what-age-aquarius
– Vogue India: https://www.vogue.in/culture-and-living/content/according-to-astrology-the-age-of-aquarius-is-coming-this-is-what-it-means-for-you
– 3HO Foundation: https://www.3ho.org/blog-2024/the-age-of-aquarius-what-it-is-and-why-you-should-care/
– Wikipedia (English): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Aquarius

ANYS REIMANN | GALLERY EXHIBITIONS