German House Gallery

871 UN-Plaza, New York, NY 10017

1st Ave. /49th St.

RSVP: Tel: 212.610.9759  By Email: German-Consulate-KU@nyct.net

 

 

 

DANIEL SAMBO-RICHTER

 

 

REAL

 

 

 

March 21 - April 28, 2007

Monday-Friday 9:00 - 5:00

 

 

 

Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 21, at 6 p.m

 

 

 

An infinitely fascinating thematic underlies painting as the acme of the arts: man himself, the human face. No other subject is capable of eliciting such intense emotion from us.

Berlin artist Daniel Sambo-Richter (born 1966) is one of the artists of his generation who is deeply devoted to figurative painting.

After a long period of intense engagement with abstract painting, man as subject has now regained its former status as the focus of Sambo-Richter’s artistic work. His art had been characterized by preoccupation with humanity once before, namely at the end of the 1980s, during an early phase of his artistic journey. Then, as now, the human face had been the focal point of his creative work. He lived and worked in Leipzig during this period.

This exhibition contains a selection of works chosen specifically for the German House, which has proved significant in terms of Sambo-Richter’s overall oeuvre, who, in addition to receiving a number of other artistic distinctions, was awarded the Art Award by the Federal State of Brandenburg in 1996 and a scholarship at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha/Nebraska in 2000.

He portrays people disconnected from a variety of different contexts, all of whom are linked via one thing: they are representative of a perception shaped by the media, yet hold their ground and rise above this. Hysteria and lethargy are the two poles which emerge as the observer attempts to fathom the artist’s creations. He shows the scandalized individual, conceived to attract the gaze of the observer. The state of our world, in which the extreme is deemed the non plus ultra, is hysterical. Alienated in his images as painting, and thrown back upon us, this opens up a space for sensual, cognitive reflection.  

Sambo-Richter’s faces cast a spell over us, holding us captive in their power.

 

http://www.germanyinnyc.org/index.php?section=eventdetail&sub=&action=retrieve_data&evtid=1891&parid=3

http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/ney/kue/bku/bka/enindex.htm