Hendrik Krawen

shows

“Chapter & Version”

Opening:
Friday, Oct. 6, 2023
6 – 8 pm

Duration:
7.10.- 4.11.2023

Visit by appointment only

The two illustrations on the invitation front page by Hendrik Krawen are titled: Fatal City and Fatal City, each 115 x 225 cm, oil on canvas, 2023 .

Hendrik Krawen presents in his new exhibition in my rooms in Düsseldorf under the title Chapter & Version paintings of streets and neighborhoods of a city whose name features remind us of human characteristics. He is struck by the names of some streets in his city of Berlin, which are called “Swabian Street, French Street or African Street” and one can wonder about the meaningfulness or their references to the names of the respective streets.

Inspired by this realization and as a painter of neo-romantic painting, he feels inspired to develop his own neighborhoods and streets, which, in his view, come up with titles, designations and characteristics that, in terms of content, constitute a mirror of human existence. 

Especially nowadays, when most of the world’s people live in megacities, we have to deal with the consequences of this coexistence. Often we see loneliness next to happiness or paradisiacal states next to fears of loss, gentle moments, sensations and feelings of closeness, of togetherness. These are all experiences, especially of the big cities, as elsewhere, only more intense, more direct and more anonymous. 

Again and again described early on in Alfred Döblin’s novel “Berlin Alexanderplatz” or much later in Tom Wolfe’s stories and more recently by Colson Whitehead about New York. Hendrik Krawen has incorporated our fatal mood, which we experience in the big cities even today and feel as a concomitant of transformational processes, into his street pictures.

We are looking forward to a moving exhibition that will inspire the viewer and to numerous motivated and curious guests.

See you soon and with best regards 

Martin Leyer-Pritzkow