Matthias Weischer

Galerie Eigen + Art, Leipzig/ Berlin
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Schaffhausen, Museum zu Allerheiligen; Mannheim, Kunsthalle; The Hague, Gemeentemuseum den Haag, Matthais Weischer, Malerei/ Painting, 2007-08, pp. 54-55 & 146, illustrated in colour
Rovereto, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Contemporary Germany. To paint is to narrate, 2008, p. 90, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate although the overall tonality is slightly lighter in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There is a very small trace of masking tape to the head of the right hand lamp, which is consistent with the artist's working method. No restoration is apparent under ultra violet light.
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Matthias Weischer's Pfeife (Whistle) is a uniquely evocative pictorial essay into the atmospheric and ontological possibilities of stereotypical emptiness. It is exactly typical of Weischer's compositions that engage the iconographic and painterly heritage of Vermeer and other seventeenth-century masters to interrogate conceptual and Post Modern themes such as the dislocation of imagery and the implications of appropriation. Embodied in the paint layers of this canvas is the disenchantment of a generation whose euphoric expectations for a post-Berlin Wall and reunified Germany stagnated in the 1990s into disillusionment and anomie. Having moved against the migratory tide from Westphalia to the relatively impoverished Leipzig in the East, Weischer examined the technical boundaries of oil painting to portray this contextual emotional landscape through the means of figurative metaphor.

In this work Weischer's practical skill is fully demonstrated, rendering a perspectival space and creating a scene laden with implication. The artist intentionally reveals the terms of the painting's manufacture: the methods and fabrication of its surfaces apparent in the well-worked and highly tactile layers of pigment. An internationally celebrated alumnus of the renowned Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, he was mentored by David Hockney and, like Neo Rauch before him has also won the Leipziger Volkszeitung Art Prize.

Though constituents of this domestic scene imply inhabitation, such as the illuminating lights and energetic fire, through the absolute human absence in Pfeife (Whistle), the room itself assumes a type of figural presence and a highly portentous character. Clues to narrative become ultimately bewildering, and the secret held within this enclosed space is tightly preserved amid the loaded ambience. Indeed, the room is the subject and harbours terrific psychological dynamism. The beholder, as potential occupant, is forced to confront the potentiality of absence and unknown consequences of the evasive Other.