Thaddeus Strode
‽ (pyramids of california)
Opening Reception—20 Jan 2023, 11AM to 6PM

Thaddeus Strode, Give head (collective unconscious), 2022. Acrylic polymer, spray paint and varnish on canvas 244 x 244 cm © Thaddeus Strode. Courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin. Photo: Jens Ziehe, Berlin
neugerriemschneider is pleased to present Thaddeus Strode’s thirteenth solo exhibition with the gallery. Entitled ‽ (Pyramids of California), this collection of new works showcases a vast visual lexicon drawn from the artist’s physical and cultural surroundings, mass media, art history, music, film, existential philosophies and the legacies of his conceptualist forbearers and mentors. He creates direct, responsive reflections of the present moment that encompass painting and sculpture within an installation-oriented framework, oscillating between the specific and the ambivalent, and inviting a viewer’s active participation through interpretation.

Thaddeus Strode, Evidence: I feel I die every night (I’m not complaining) (I’m not the same), 2022. acrylic polymer, spray paint and varnish on canvas 210 x 244 cm © Thaddeus Strode. Courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin. Photo: Jens Ziehe, Berlin
Titled for the interrobang—the ligature of an exclamation point and a question mark—Strode’s exhibition captures the energetic forthrightness of the comics that were at the origin of his artmaking and continue to serve as key stylistic and conceptual references. An unpronounceable symbol on its own, the interrobang concisely conveys awe and shock—a notion complementing Strode’s system of reflecting upon existence amidst societal uncertainty. The show’s subtitle, Pyramids of California, evokes the fantasy ascribed to the mythologized region where the artist grew up, lives and works, hinting at a grand embellishment of the non-fictional and probing the distinction between reality and fabrication. Here he addresses the natural malleability of language and his world-building capacity: Conflating, fusing and creating narratives anew frequently appears in his work, often manifesting as surreal, collage-like compositions that span media and technique.

Installation view: Thaddeaus Strode, ‽ (pyramids of california), January 21 – February 25, 2023, neugerriemschneider, Berlin © Thaddeaus Strode. Courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin. Photo: Jens Ziehe, Berlin
Strode adopts a pared-down, iconographic ethos for the exhibition’s sculptural cutouts and paintings. The former, with imagery scanned from publications or the artist’s sketches, are magnified to become larger than life and push the presentation into a spatial dimension. For the latter, Strode employs his intuitive process to showcase each work’s most salient elements through deliberate, honed applications of vibrant color, spray-painted accents, dimensional texturing or expressive black outlines. Pairing this with deft navigation of negative space, he foregrounds immediacy in meditations on the here and now, using visual motifs and a wide cast of characters, often from popular culture, along with textual fragments. These pithy statements or quotes, generally appearing as freely associative non sequiturs, build upon the comic-book tradition of thought bubbles—illustrated externalizations of internal expression. Strode’s compositions share and expand upon this principle, and through a focus on portraiture, turn this introspection outwards. Their subjects are frequently personal, birthed from self-reflection, yet remain ambiguous and open-ended, inviting each viewer’s individual conclusions. The works’ nuanced archetypes that take on identities all their own. They occupy space and time of Strode’s creation, featuring in images that amalgamate intentionality and reception, and together, reckon with an ambivalent future while looking ahead toward its potential.

Installation view: Thaddeaus Strode, ‽ (pyramids of california), January 21 – February 25, 2023, neugerriemschneider, Berlin © Thaddeaus Strode. Courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin. Photo: Jens Ziehe, Berlin
Thaddeus Strode (b. 1964) has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions including at Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich (2022); me Collectors Room Berlin / Stiftung Olbricht, Berlin (2015); Villa Schöningen, Potsdam (2014); Belvedere 21 – Museum of Contemporary Art, Vienna (2013); Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal (2008); Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis (2008); Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami (2008); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Chicago (2007); ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe (2007); Sammlung Goetz, Munich (2006); Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart (2004); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2003); Kunstverein Heilbronn, Heilbronn (2000); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (1997); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (1996); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (1996); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1994); and Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (1993).
Thilo Heinzmann
playing slowies

Thilo Heinzmann, O.T., 2022, oil, pigment, glass on canvas 270 x 420 x 5 cm © Thilo Heinzmann, courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin photo by Roman März
neugerriemschneider is pleased to present Thilo Heinzmann’s second exhibition with the gallery. On view in our Christinenstrasse space, Playing Slowies comprises a selection of new works that expand upon Heinzmann’s pigment paintings, exploring for the first time in his practice the correlation between outsized scale and methodology. Here, compositions feature unbound pigments in their powdered form and fragments of glass as they dash across textured fields in gestures that are at once meticulously calculated and inevitably subject to chance. Singular in their approach to mark making and unique navigation of proportion, they are collections of motion, color, light, speed and energy that capture these aspects as they amalgamate to shape new modes of conceptualizing pictorial space.

Thilo Heinzmann, O.T., 2022, oil, pigment, glass on canvas behind acrylic glass cover 93 x 83 x 8.5 cm © Thilo Heinzmann, courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin photo by Roman März
Thilo Heinzmann’s pigment paintings, each entitled O.T. (all 2022), are the results of diverse cumulative processes, encapsulating analytical approaches to painting and an understanding of the discipline’s component parts as developed and refined over the course of his career and across work complexes such as his Aicmo and Tacmo series – the results of painterly research and discovery. Heinzmann reaches toward the essentials, dissecting the medium to expose its fundamentals, and deploying his established tools including color, form, line, space, texture and contour in dynamic interplay. In doing so, he strikes a delicate balance between concentrated decision making and unpredictability.

Installation view: Thilo Heinzmann, playing slowies, neugerriemschneider, Berlin © neugerriemschneider, Berlin, courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin photo by Jens Ziehe, Berlin

Installation view: Thilo Heinzmann, playing slowies, neugerriemschneider, Berlin © neugerriemschneider, Berlin, courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin photo by Jens Ziehe, Berlin
Set against and working in concert with their backgrounds, the pigments’ unmarred luminance interacts and enters dialogue with these bases – opaque coats that transform the canvas’ woven binaries into individuated, energetic picture planes. Heinzmann’s grounds stand as their own entities, drawing attention to painting’s literal and metaphorical foundation, while also providing stages for his pigments. The powdered bursts of hue are interspersed with particles of colored glass, which, along with both the position of a viewer and movement- evoking marks, create layered depth through the manipulation of light and its refraction. This play of light upon the O.T. works lends them an ever-shifting quality that emphasizes Heinzmann’s nonhierarchical treatment of each material and compositional element. Playing Slowies signifies a new exploration of scale for the artist. Presenting O.T. canvases of this monumental size for the first time, alongside an alternating selection of smaller paintings resting on free-standing, cantilevered easels designed by the artist, the exhibition and the works within it approach scale and substance as independent from, yet in conversation with one another rather than positioning them in direct relation: Their motifs respond to dimension, but do not derive from it.

Installation view: Thilo Heinzmann, playing slowies, neugerriemschneider, Berlin © neugerriemschneider, Berlin, courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin photo by Jens Ziehe, Berlin
Work by Thilo Heinzmann (b. 1969) has been featured in international institutional exhibitions, and is in a number of public collections including Tate, London; Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn; M+, Hong Kong and Tiroler Landesmuseen, Innsbruck. Thilo Heinzmann is a professor of painting at Universität der Künste, Berlin, Germany, where he lives and works.