Matthias Weischer

 STANZE

a duo exhibition with Flavio de Marco

May 6 – July 30, 2023

Fondazione Coppola, Porta Castello's Torrione, Vicenza (IT)

STANZE a duo exhibition including artworks by Matthias Weischer (Elte, Germany, 1973) and Flavio De Marco (Lecce, Italy, 1975) is on view at Fondazione Coppola between May 6 and July 30 in the spaces of the Porta Castello's Torrione, Vicenza (IT), accompanied by a critical text by Davide Ferri. The project, which includes about thirty paintings, is above all a dialogue and confrontation between the poetics of the two artists, which is articulated along the five floors of the Torrione around a central core: the spatiality of the painting, which translates into the representation of interiors - rooms, in fact - to which correspond real interior landscapes.

Matthias Weischer's works focus on uninhabited, enigmatic spaces and environments, suspended between a before and an after, between the disappearance and the silent expectation of human presence and happening. The rooms painted by the artist are thus half-empty, temporarily abandoned environments, stripped of elements of reality, places where the sense of waiting is amplified through the introduction of other spaces within the rooms, paintings and mirrors (thus images within images) frequently hanging on the walls of the rooms.

Weischer's works, moreover, are scores in which space is defined through a long process of layering, which gives the painting a vibrant material presence, like a sensitive skin that is also, inevitably, a dimension of time.

Matthias Weischer has a forthcoming solo exhibition at GRIMM, New York, NY (US) opening October 20, 2023.

He is also part of a group exhibition with the Rolex Arts Festival at EMST, National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (GR) opening on 25 May until 4 June, 2023.

For enquiries regarding the featured works or for more information,
please email enquiry@grimmgallery.com

Matthias Weischer’s paintings depict domestic interior scenes and landscapes that bring into question the perception of space. Weischer gradually builds thick layers of pigment on the canvas, creating surfaces that are alive with rich texture. His technique serves to both contrast and unite areas of intricate detail and emptiness. Since Weischer first gained recognition as a member of the Neue Leipziger Schule in the early 2000s, he has experimented with various techniques, pushing historical genres into exciting new territories. His origins as a painter of elaborate spaces charged with personal memories connects to his present work through a shared tendency toward the theatrical. In 2007, after a period of working in Rome, the artist shifted his focus toward the landscape and adopted a more painterly technique with emphasis on expressing form through the materiality of the surface. At present, Weischer has returned to the stage of the interior space with renewed interest in the figure and its relationship to the domestic realm.

Weischer (b.1973 in Elte, DE) lives and works in Leipzig (DE). He studied at the Leipzig Academy, where he received his Bachelor’s degree in 2000 and his Master’s degree in 2003. In 2004, Weischer was chosen as the protégé of the British artist David Hockney through the Rolex Mentor & Protégé Arts Initiative. In 2005 Weischer participated in the Prague Biennale (CZ) and the 51st Venice Biennial (IT). Matthias Weischer’s work has been the subject of exhibitions at Kunstmuseum, The Hague (NL); Drents Museum, Assen (NL); Museo Arte de Ponce, Ponce (PR); Kunsthalle,Mainz (DE); CAC Málaga - Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga (ES) and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (DE).

His work can be found in institutional andprivate collections, including AkzoNobel ArtFoundation, Amsterdam (NL); AMC Collezione Coppola, Vicenza (IT); Arken Museum of Modern Art, Arken (DK); Drents Museum, Assen (NL); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA (US); Kunstmuseum,The Hague (NL); Rubell Museum, Miami, FL and Washington, DC (US); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (NL); G2 Kunsthalle, Leipzig (DE); Olbricht Foundation, Berlin (DE); Pinault Collection, Paris (FR); Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt am Main (DE); The Saatchi Gallery, London (UK); Telegraph Foundation, Olomouc (CZ); Zabludowicz Collection, London (UK) among others.