Ulf Puder

Torch Gallery is pleased to invite you to the first solo exhibition in the Netherlands by Leipzig painter, Ulf Puder.

Together with painters such as Neo Rauch, Ulf Puder forms part of a new generation of painters originally trained under the G.D.R. and known under the name of the New School of Leipzig. As a student of the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst –a center for graphic arts, like etching, lithography, woodcuts and book design—Ulf Puder, just as his fellows from the New School of Leipzig, developed high technical skills, a pronounced taste for figurative painting and a preference for melancholic subject matters. Just as for the rest of the members of this school, Ulf Puder’s work is characterized by the influence of this traditional painterly education that prevailed in Leipzig under the G.D.R. and that privileged craftsmanship and power of illustration over more conceptual forms of art making prevailing in the West since the end of World War II. The narrative emphasis that characterizes most of the works of the New Leipzig school is also present in Puder’s work –yet to a lesser degree. Together with his color palette, his geometric compositions featuring architectures in the manner of inserted cubical forms remind one of the aesthetic language of the Bauhaus. Also, apart from the reference to the metaphysic paintings by deChirico with which Puder’s deserted streets, buildings and railways share the enigmatic atmosphere, Pop art and 3-D computer animations also resonate in his work of both nostalgic and futuristic inspiration. Barely inhabited, his urbanscapes are seem to be on the verge of coming into being or vanishing –they are structures which seem to be moving independently according to a logic of their own. Some say, they constitute the mirror of the changing architectural fabric of the G.D.R. cities since the fall of Communism.

Ulf Puder was born in 1958 in Leipzig where he currently lives and works. Among other group exhibitions, Ulf Puder participated to Archipeinture at Le Plateau, Paris and at the Camden Art Centre, London; The Painter of Modern Life, Museum de Paviljoens, Almere, NL; Kunsthaus Dresden; Museo Municipal de Malaga; and New German Painting at the Prague Biennale 2. This is his first soloexhibition in the Netherlands.

New paintings and drawings by Ulf Puder are to be seen from the 26th of May till the 28th of June 2007 at TORCH Gallery, Amsterdam.

Ulf Puder
New paintings and drawings