Spezifikation #37 Chris Newman Paintings (and Drawings)€¦ · burger Bahnhof – Berlin, Kolumba Cologne, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Lime-light Kortrijk, Museum for Contemporary

Chris Newman’s new works are “on the edge”. They are everything: painting, drawing, crusting, direct expressions of his soul. A good soul with a sharp tongue. Nothing leaves him cold in his current intensive engagement with Paul Gauguin. He absorbs and transcribes Gauguin’s view of the world, turns it into a Newman view and hits the spectator hard. Newman lets his paintings speak. Even during the process of painting he gives his works their own independent existence, lets them decide. Nonetheless, he remains the judge over the life and death of his pieces. He decides if they deserve a life, if they are good enough to convey what there is to say to the ignorant. Newman judges those that aren’t good enough very harshly, painting them over with gesso and making them into ghosts that shimmer through here and there in the new works.

His painting is another dimension. What seems to come along rather gently unlocks the whole range of our emotions and is able to strike the heart. From brutality and aggression to energy and love, all of his works reverberate.

Spezifikation #37Chris NewmanPaintings (and Drawings)

January 24 – March 14, 2020

Opening hourstue–fri 2–6.30 pm, sat 1–5 pmand by appointment

Gartenstrasse 4760596 Frankfurt / [email protected]

Chris Newman

Born London 1958. Due to illness of mother, youth much concerned with do-mestic duties (especially cooking). 1976-1979 King’s College London, Bachelor of Music Degree. During this time met Eugene Dubnov and became engaged in translating Russian poets into English (Mandelstam, Chlebnikov): this act of translating later became seminal as in – from one medium to another – from life into an artistic medium. Started writing own poems in 1979. Moved to Co-logne 1980 to study with Mauricio Kagel; both the town and the person “threw him back on himself”, and from this time date the first music pieces and vide-os and songs which could be called his. Married to Claire Alby (1982-1991). Co-founded rock group Janet Smith 1983 as singer/songwriter, using the presenta-tion of self as an extension of the compositional act. First concerts/performances took place at eg. ICA London, TAT Frankfurt, Kunstverein Co-logne, Cooper Union New York; 2 albums appeared (on TAT Frankfurt and Re-view Records Germany). Throughout the eighties continued to work in these various mediums to which the same basic methods used in the making of work were applied, but there was no attempt at simultaneous presentation. In 1989 started painting, out of curiosity to see how the medium would react to the approach taken to the other mediums. This led to installations spacially combining work in two mediums made in the same way (installed concerts/live installations); these have appeared at eg. Kunstverein Düsseldorf, Ham-burger Bahnhof – Berlin, Kolumba Cologne, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Lime-light Kortrijk, Museum for Contemporary Art Strasbourg, Arp Museum Roland-seck, Goethe Institute Budapest, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, St. Petri – Lübeck, Kunstmuseet Borås, Alexander Ochs Galerie – Berlin; but one-medium pres-entations were also seen as valid – eg. at Musica Viva Munich, Hessicher Rund-funk Frankfurt, Casino Montréal, Ultima Festival – Oslo, Bergen Festival, Flan-ders Festival – Brussels, Vooruit – Gent, Haus19 – Berlin (also as a curator), Galerie Gordon Pym et Fils – Paris, Burnett Miller Gallery – Los Angeles, Galerie Ute Parduhn – Düsseldorf, Neues Museum Weserburg – Bremen, Galerie Bismark – Bremen, Guardini-Stiftung – Berlin, Turm/Märkisches Museum Berlin, Patrick De Brock – Knokke, Galerie Johannes Zielke – Berlin, Feld+Haus Galerie – Frank-furt, Monday Evening Concert – Los Angeles, de Player – Rotterdam. A number of books have emerged, published (among others) by Book Works London and Salon Verlag Cologne; a number of C.D.’s (among others) on Content in Swe-den and Mode Records, New York. After initial Cologne period lived in Paris, in London, in Cologne (again) and now in Berlin. There was also a brief outing to Stuttgart as professor at the Kunstakademie (2001-2002).

Untitled #1, 2019Acrylic and gesso on canvas150 × 120 cm















Drawings, 2019Pentel Pen, pencil and colored pencil on paper40 × 30 cm

Gartenstrasse 4760596 Frankfurt / [email protected]

Documents

Spezifikation #37 Chris Newman Paintings (and Drawings)€¦ · burger Bahnhof – Berlin, Kolumba Cologne, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Lime-light Kortrijk, Museum for Contemporary