Anton Henning

Christopher Grimes Gallery will present our second solo show of Anton Henning’s work entitled Tragedy, Sunburns & Still-lifes from November 27 – January 15, 2005. A reception for the artist will be held on Saturday, November 27 from 6 to 8 PM. The gallery is located at 916 Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica.

The painting of Anton Henning appropriates a myriad of subjects and styles from art history asserting an affinity for the good life. Brilliant hues and vivid patterns suggest an allure and homage to modern masters such as Courbet, Picasso and Matisse while scenes of frivolity and earthly decadence suggest an influence that is potently Baroque. Henning reclaims a variety of these stylistic conventions and recontextualizes them for his own means. At times he literally posits himself in the scene securing his place within the canon of art history. The resulting theater of painting shares similar motifs and visual elements that varies depending on circumstance. As Dominic Van Den Boogerd elaborates in the artist’s catalog from the De Pont Foundation:

One can not say that each painting arises from the one preceding it and that the body of work develops gradually. Nor does the work display a spiral progression toward an imaginary essence. Those are older, modernist outlooks on the development of an oeuvre. Henning’s art spreads in all directions, branches out at unexpected moments, like a weed out of control.

Tragedy, Sunburns & Still-lifes reveals its sentiments within the volatile transaction that takes place among the works. In the artist’s own words: So fine and delicate that it seems as though the entire world is contained in the work – your child growing up, the fear of loss, the love that conquers death, everything. The stimulus provided only by painting. Henning’s vitality, sincerity and optimism provide levity for these technically beautiful canvases.

Anton Henning was born in Berlin in 1964 where he currently lives and works. He has shown extensively in Europe and is regarded as approaching painting with a renewed energy and dynamism. A major survey of Henning’s work was mounted in 2003 at the Museum of Art, Lucerne, Switzerland and in 2002 at the De Pont Foundation, Tilburg, Holland. Other exhibition venues include Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/Main, Germany; Kunsterein Hannover; La 3e Biennale de Montréal - 2002, Montréal; and the Royal College of Art, London.

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Anton Henning