MEDIA RELEASE GUNTER CHRISTMANN: NOW & THEN 26 July – 16 November 2014
“In dialogue with people a successful work of art is a world without end”– Gunter Christmann
Gunter Christmann: Now and Then is the first exhibition to survey the career of this remarkable Australian artist. It includes highlights from fifty years of painting together with drawings, photographs, sound and video works tracing the evolution of his major themes and series, from the geometric and constructivist abstracts, splatter and shaker box paintings through to his sensitive figure studies, silhouette paintings and landscapes.
Born in Berlin in 1936, Christmann arrived in Australia in 1959 and began painting in the early 1960s. Though he studied briefly at the East Sydney Technical College, his practice was almost entirely self-directed, influenced by international art, music and literature and the street culture that surrounded him in the inner-city suburb of Darlinghurst, where he resided and worked for fifty years. MEDIA RELEASE He first exhibited in a group exhibition at the Argus Gallery, Melbourne, in 1965 and held his first solo exhibition at Sydney’s Central Street Gallery the following year. These paintings he later described as ”geometric abstraction, in the European tradition”.
His reputation as a ground-breaking and innovative painter was sealed when his work was included in several key historic exhibitions including The Field at the National Gallery of Victoria (1968), the XI Biennal de São Paolo (1971) and the 1st and 4th Biennales of Sydney (1973 and 1982).
After 1970 Christmann made a conscious shift to ‘let the painting find its own order’ and an alternating balance between abstract and figurative modes followed, unified by close observation of the world around him. His German past and life with his wife, artist Jenny Christmann contributed rich narrative material, and the lively and ongoing appeal of politics, current affairs and the activities of the mind made his work a type of diary, making connections between ideas and objects. In his last, late phase, Christmann was gathering anew the kind of critical and public acclaim that surrounded his striking debut as an artist in the 1960s. Painting for himself rather than the market or critics throughout his long career, he moved easily between personal subjects and themes with universal qualities, forging a truce between his European sensibility and affection for his Sydney locale. MEDIA RELEASE Christmann worked closely with Heide curator Lesley Harding on the development of the exhibition before he died in November 2013.
Lesley has said of that time, “Gunter and I had the benefit of two productive years making plans for this exhibition. When he realised he wouldn’t get to see it he became very focused, not so much on what to include—we had already covered that—but on how the exhibition would feel: ‘Hang by size and colour, flow by image’ he told me. ‘Make the exhibition a poem, like a love affair.’ Gunter made paintings that stay in your memory; beautiful, complex, and sometimes baffling. But he was not at all interested in providing explanations about his work. Instead his advice was simply ‘Bring a little time and look’. The answers, he quite rightly maintained, are in the pictures themselves”.
Curator Lesley Harding is available for interview. Watch a 58sec Gunter Christmann Shuffle Box Video No. 10: https://vimeo.com/97283349 Download high res images: https://www.hightail.com/download/ZUcyQ3R3NDRCMTdFdzhUQw MEDIA RELEASE RELATED PROGRAMS ART TALK: NOW AND THEN Saturday 26 July, 2pm Curator Lesley Harding discusses the motifs and themes in the work of Gunter Christmann, his life and his collaboration with wife and fellow artist Jenny Christmann. FREE with admission ART TALK: GUNTER CHRISTMANN Saturday 2 August, 2pm Artist Simon Barney, a friend and colleague of Gunter Christmann for thirty years, talks about Christmann’s inspirations, techniques and perspectives on art. FREE with admission EXHIBITION TOURS Every Tuesday, 29 July – 26 August, 2pm FREE with admission ABOUT GUNTER CHRISTMANN Gunter Christmann was born in Berlin in 1936 and arrived in Melbourne in February, 1959. He later moved to Sydney and started painting there in 1962. Christmann’s first exhibition in 1965 was a group show, 25 Young Painters, at the Argus Gallery in Melbourne. The following year he held his first solo exhibition at Central Street Gallery, Sydney and he exhibited regularly after that, both in Australia and overseas. In 1968 he exhibited in the historic exhibition The Field at the National Gallery of Victoria and following that the XI Biennale of Sao Paolo (1971) and the 1st and 4th Biennales of Sydney (1973 and 1982). Christmann was represented by Niagara Galleries, Melbourne from 1984. His work is held in most major public collections in Australia and in several international collections including the Berlinische Gallerie, Berlin, H.R.M. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands’ Collection and the British Museum, London. Christmann died in Sydney in November 2013. – END MEDIA RELEASE – Media Enquiries: Nicole Kenning, Marketing & Communications Manager | nicole.kenning@heide.com.au| (03) 8850 5943 Heide Museum of Modern Art 7 Templestowe Road, Bulleen, VIC 3105 heide.com.au Museum Opening Hours Tuesday-Sunday 10am-5pm. Closed Mondays. Image captions: Gunter Christmann | Red/Green Cross 1966 | oil on composition board | 122 x 122 cm | National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne | Puchased 1992 | © The Estate of Gunter Christmann and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne Gunter Christmann |Die Mauer/The Wall/Le Mur 1989 | acrylic on canvas | 168 x 243.5 cm | Monash University Collection, Melbourne | Purchased 1989 | © The Estate of Gunter Christmann and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne Gunter Christmann | Smoke OZKAR 2001 | acrylic and mixed media on canvas | 137 x 122 cm | Private collection, Melbourne | © The Estate of Gunter Christmann and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne
Gunter Christmann 