Robert Barry - Jonas Burgert - Yasmine Chatila - Christian Hahn - Henning Kles

Laleh Khorramian - Axel Krause - Tobias Lehner - Sol LeWitt - Mona Marzouk

Ziad Naccache - Nabil Nahas - Henrieke Ribbe - Norbert Schwontkowski - Setareh Shahbazi

Shazia Sikander - Christine Streuli - Florian Thomas - Barbara Tucholski

 

We are happy to invite You to our second exhibition in The Sfeir-Semler Gallery.

Following our first show Flight 405 (which was a conceptual exhibition on identities), we will this time concentrate on painting besides two elder minimal artists we show a group of young emerging painters from East and West . They all work in different styles reflecting by their painting approach a certain geographical identity and actual trends in the international art scene.

During the nineties the international contemporary (mostly western) art scene focused very strongly on photography, Today we observe an incredible international hype on painting! Since two or three years art school students restarted to make paintings (while the generation before worked on concept art and photography), and important collectors restarted buying paintings, especially German paintings! Of course, painting is a very broad field: there are hundreds of different possible styles! In this respect the title of the show "Rainbow" is reflecting this phenomenon and marked out our exhibition concept.

In the entrance area of the gallery space You will at first run into two very known elder painters who stand for continuity and an all time creativity in contemporary painting:

Sol LEWITT (*1928 in Hartford/Connecticut-lives in Chester, USA) and Robert BARRY (*1936 in New York - lives in New Jersey, USA). Both are very important US minimal and conceptual artists (who we are proud to represent since several years), whose painting has constantly renewed since the 60’s. Both are showing new works, LeWitt even conceived three new wall drawings especially for the Beirut show! ?

Among our young artists you will find new works of Christian HAHN (*1965 in Nürnberg- lives in Hamburg), Christine STREULI (*1975 in Bern-lives in Zurich) andTobias LEHNER (*1974 in Regensburg-lives in Leipzig). They work in a style plurality between figuration and abstraction testing the possibilities of expression in painting now and today.

Furthermore we show exponents of the "Neue DeutscheMalerei": Jonas BURGERT (*1969 in Berlin-lives in Berlin),Henning KLES (*1970 in Hamburg-lives in Hamburg), Axel KRAUSE(*1958 in Halle-lives in Leipzig), HenriekeRIBBE (*1979 in Hannover-lives in Berlin), Norbert Schwontkowski (*1949 in Bremen-lives in Bremen), Florian THOMAS(*1966 in Neustadt an der Waldnaab-lives in Munich),Barbara TUCHOLSKI (*1947 in Loitz-lives in SchleswigHolstein).

All of them represent a new figurative, storytelling painting in the tradition of German painting, ranging between realism narration and surrealism?

A third group of painters represent the Middle Eastern art scene: Nabil NAHAS (*1949 in Beirut-lives in New York and Lebanon), Yasmine CHATILA (Lebanese*1974 in Egypt-lives in New York), Laleh KHORRAMIAN (* 1975 Teheran-lives in New York), Mona MARZOUK (*1968 in Alexandria- lives in Egypt), Ziad NACCACHE (*1980 Beirut- lives in Montreal), Setareh SHAHABAZI (*1978 in Teheran -lives in Berlin) , Shazia SIKANDER (*1969in Lahore, Pakistan-lives in New York).

All these painters live in the Middle East or have a biographical relationship to the region:
Nabil Nahasis an important, well known Lebanese painter elaborating new ways in painting since the 70ies in New York. Laleh KhoRramian and Shazia Sikander are young painters creating painted animation films in the tradition of Persian miniatures. In her miniature bichromatic paintings Mona Marzouk interprets architecture. Setareh Shahbazzi tells stories as we know them from children’s drawing books; her Beirut installation has been done in Beirut during a one year scholarship. Yasmine Chatila and Ziad Nacchache are very young Lebanese painters. Both are inspired from their oriental background but each gets to a complete different work. We are looking forward to your reactions and hope to see you during the opening! Please feel free to contact us for any questions or if you wish to get jpg´s!

You may also visit our website, starting from the 8th of September.

Sincerely Yours

Andrée Sfeir