Galerie Friese
Galerie Friese

SO SWEET, SO DEAD
Cornelius Völker

November 04 – February 03, 2024

Cornelius Völker's current solo exhibition at the Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf is spectacular - it shows the whole spectrum of his wide-ranging artistic oeuvre. We are very pleased to be able to show his new works in the gallery during the exhibition's duration.

Painting today must above all prove its consistency. There is the common thread in Völker's work, which from the early works to the present day repeatedly poses the question and answers it in each breathtaking way: How can art become, how can pictures be, what does that tell us, especially today? Völker's reservoir is art history, his material is the life of us all: The meat, the leaves, the books, the paper, the candies, the vases and flowers. He gives the motifs their own sensual association: we think we can hear the crackling of the candy wrappers. We feel the heartbeat, we smell the scent of the flowers, the leaves - we become part of time in the picture. This is perhaps the greatest mastery of his work: it captures the irretrievable moment in the picture, and it is precisely this moment that takes shape in such a way that we spend time in the picture, with it. This makes his work meaningful and unique.

Cornelius Völker (*1965) studied at A.R. Penck and Dieter Krieg in Düsseldorf. He has been a professor at the Kunstakademie Münster since 2005 and a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 2018.

 

WORKS

SO SWEET, SO DEAD
Cornelius Völker

November 04 – February 03, 2024

Cornelius Völker's current solo exhibition at the Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf is spectacular - it shows the whole spectrum of his wide-ranging artistic oeuvre. We are very pleased to be able to show his new works in the gallery during the exhibition's duration.

Painting today must above all prove its consistency. There is the common thread in Völker's work, which from the early works to the present day repeatedly poses the question and answers it in each breathtaking way: How can art become, how can pictures be, what does that tell us, especially today? Völker's reservoir is art history, his material is the life of us all: The meat, the leaves, the books, the paper, the candies, the vases and flowers. He gives the motifs their own sensual association: we think we can hear the crackling of the candy wrappers. We feel the heartbeat, we smell the scent of the flowers, the leaves - we become part of time in the picture. This is perhaps the greatest mastery of his work: it captures the irretrievable moment in the picture, and it is precisely this moment that takes shape in such a way that we spend time in the picture, with it. This makes his work meaningful and unique.

Cornelius Völker (*1965) studied at A.R. Penck and Dieter Krieg in Düsseldorf. He has been a professor at the Kunstakademie Münster since 2005 and a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 2018.

 

WORKS