Opening: Thursday, March 16, 2023, 6–9pm

Karl Bohrmann (1928–1998) created since the 1950s and over the span of half a century an extensive Oeuvre consisting of paintings, drawings, collages and photographs. He worked with acrylic and oil paint, oil crayons, watercolors and pencil on a variety of different colored papers and on nettle. He also reused his own drawings and collages for his own paintings. In addition, he appreciated the peculiarities of found materials and included different pieces of found paper into new image designs. Karl Bohrmann’s iconography mainly consists of landscapes, interiors, still-life and nude drawings. His choice of pictorial subjects reflects the everyday: house, window, ladder, lamp, bed, table, chair, container, ships, airplanes and other flying objects. He also reworked his preferred pictorial props into further groups of works. Karl Bohrmann created playful images with few lines and sporadic use of empty color fields, which singular objects and spaces are often only hinted at. By highlighting a specific picture frame within the work, Bohrmann reflected the spectator’s position within the image itself. Especially in his collages he used the aesthetic of the artistic material for the design of his images.

Georg Fuchssteiner (*1982) is a painter and and draughtsman whose work on paper and canvas also oscillates between abstract and figurative. His precise and transparent compositions, carried out in pencil, color pen, watercolor, ink with partially added collages on sometimes found materials, are full of details and evoke unique visual impressions. Georg Fuchssteiner is a patient observer and he appreciates moments of serendipity in his work: „A coherent drawing is like a small wonder, if it works out.“ (1) Shapes and colors appear to be floating in his drawings and paintings of different sizes and cover the whole surface of the paper. Forms of vegetation and figures appear occasionally in his pictorial creations. Georg Fuchssteiners delicately drawn depictions escape an easy interpretation. Instead, figurative and abstract details share the same pictorial space in proximity and elude any apparent relation to the reality of a beholder. This way, Georg Fuchssteiners works create new and unique meditative images full of lightness and poetry.

The exhibition “Karl Bohrmann, Georg Fuchssteiner. Soft Gravity” at Jahn und Jahn in Munich combines drawings and paintings of these artists of two different generations in a new joint presentation. Georg Fuchssteiner created his works on paper and a series of watercolors on canvas between 2016 and 2023. His work is juxtaposed with works of different sizes by Karl Bohrmann created in the 1980s and 1990s. Both artists share a sensibility in their use of the artistic space and color and their artworks evade any concrete fixation in either time or real space. Both Karl Bohrmann and Georg Fuchssteiner also use writing in their artistic practice for self-reflection. Karl Bohrmann took notes between 1972 and 1986, in which he reflected on his work as an artist. In 1973, he said for instance: “Also images are not made, to make other images obsolete. One should rather make images in order to make images, despite and because an image, more than words, claims to be the one image. Also, an image is well done, the more it evokes the creative feeling, to be only one possible image - not an unlimited amount, which should be made.” (2) Karl Bohrmann’s work also includes again and again fragments of written text as part of new image collages. Texts become, beyond the textual reference itself, integral parts of the design of the work. Most of Georg Fuchssteiner’s works have specific titles. First, these appear to be descriptive, but the words chosen by the artist also lead to new individual thought processes. Additionally, the artist also recycles the printed word and reuses it in the form of self-made paper which then appear as collages with a clearly visible mix up of letters. Writing is used by both artists in different ways as a creative means and for its reflexive potential. It is used as creative tool within the work itself and outside of the work to reflect on the artistic position.

(1) „Von Konstellationen. Ein Gespräch mit Georg Fuchssteiner“, in: Georg Fuchssteiner. Wasserfarben und Graphit, with a text by F.G. Scheuer and an artist interview by Felicitas Kirgis, Jahn und Jahn, Munich 2020, p. 60. (2) Karl Bohrmann. Notizen 1972-1986, with an epilogue by Michael Semff, Munich 2022, p. 10.

Karl Bohrmann (Mannheim 1928–1998 Cologne), 1947–1948 art school in Saarbrücken; 1948–1949 Akademie in Stuttgart (with Willi Baumeister). 1972–1980 Teaching position at the Städelschule, State University for Fine Arts, director of the Städel evening school. 1985 member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. Awards and Prizes: 1952–1954 scholarship of Rhineland-Palatinate; 1957 Youth Art Prize Baden Württemberg; 1958 Palatinate Prize; 1962 Sponsorship Award Rhineland-Palatinate; 1964 Premio Lugano; 1969 German Prize Mostra Biennale Internationale Della Gracia, Florence; 1976 Art Prize Rhineland-Palatinate; 1982 Scholarship Villa Romana, Florence; 1984 Special Guest Villa Massimo, Rome; 1987 Art Prize for Artists, Düsseldorf. Selected solo exhibitions: 2019 Jahn und Jahn, Munich; 2018 Richard-Heinzmann-Museum, Niebüll; 2012 Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich; 2008 Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich; 2006/7 Sinclair House, Altona Kulturforum, Bad Homburg v.d. Höhe / Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich; 1997 Museum der Stadt Ratingen; 1988 Mittelrheinisches Landesmuseum Mainz; 1980 Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; 1973 Landesmuseum Oldenburg; 1954 Graphisches Kabinett Grisebach, Heidelberg.

Georg Fuchssteiner (born 1982 in Straubing) lives and works in Bogen, 1999–2003 apprenticeship as industrial mechanic, AdBK, 2003–2011 studies painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Awards and Prizes: 2005 Culture Prize of the city of Straubing; 2007 Fanny Carlita Scholarship; 2008 Jubilee Scholarship on the occasion of the 200th Anniversary of AdBK Munich; 2011 Senator Bernhard Worst Prize; 2018 Art Award of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. Selected exhibitions: 2020 Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, Munich; 2020 Jahn und Jahn, Munich; 2018 Jahn und Jahn, Munich; 2018 Galerie Sandra Bürgel, Berlin; 2016 Kunstarkaden, Munich, 2015 Städtische Galerie Gordonhaus, Cham; 2015 Neuer Kunstverein, Regensburg; 2015 Schönwald Fine Arts, Dusseldorf; 2014 Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich; 2013 Galerie Jahn Baaderstraße; 2012 Kunst + Kunz, Munich; 2011 Lothringer 13, Munich; 2011 Galerie Jahn Baaderstraße, Munich.

Selected bibliography:

Karl Bohrmann. Notizen 1972–1986, with an afterword by Michael Semff, Munich 2022.

Georg Fuchssteiner. Hedwig Eberle, with a text by F.G. Scheuer, exh. cat. Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts / Jahn und Jahn, Munich 2021.

Georg Fuchssteiner. Wasserfarben und Graphit, with a text by F.G. Scheuer and an artist interview with Felicitas Kirgis, exh. cat. Jahn und Jahn, Munich 2020.

Karl Bohrmann. Collagen und Arbeiten auf Nessel 1983–1994, with an essay by Siegfried Gohr, exh. cat. Galerie Fred Jahn and Schönwald Fine Arts, Düsseldorf 2012.

Karl Bohrmann. Bilder, Zeichnungen, Collagen 1961–1988, with an essay by Michael Semff, exh. cat. Schönwald Fine Arts, Düsseldorf 2009.

Karl Bohrmann. Innenräume - Außenräume. Zeichnungen 1991–1998, with contributions by Michael Semff, Johannes Janssen and Andrea Firmenich, exh. cat. Sinclair-Haus, Altona Kulturforum, Bad Homburg v.d.Höhe / Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich 2006/2007.