Paul Schwer: Von beiden Enden

No Beauty without Danger

With quiet composure, the sculptures and paintings by Paul Schwer (*1951) intervene in existing architectures and features of the landscape. His repertoire of forms and materials has always focused on autonomous sculpture, since it appears to most poignantly reflect cultural and social conditions. It all began in the late 1980s in paintings with figurative motifs; their materiality seemed to dissolve in blurry color constellations. Then, during the 1990s, he started to work three-dimensionally, his paintings left the wall, and in a pattern he developed, spiraling like a DNA, color and light interlinked with space and movement. The result are works that are both rough, brittle and seemingly crafty, but also seem to have a special aura; they are simply beautiful. Stephan Berg (Kunstmuseum Bonn) recognized in them a mixture of poetic exuberance and softness that moves back and forth between the poles of (constructed) statics and (contingent) dynamics. Johann Hartle (Amsterdam) quoted a song title by Einstürzende Neubauten: Keine Schönheit ohne Gefahr (No beauty without danger). For Hartle, Paul Schwer's work combines these two concepts in a spatial symbolism that promotes the spontaneity of political expression with the appropriation of one's own body. Hartle refers to a bon mot by Sartre: The artist is like a dog without a cerebellum that has lost all sense of security, attachment and certainty. With his heroic, self-effacing idea of artistic authorship in the moment of dangerous beauty, Paul Schwer confirms this characterization of the artist with adventurous heart!

Exhibitions:
Museum Ratingen, 29/6-30/9/2018
Museum Goch, 1/7- 9/9/2018