Sven-Ole FRAHM - A Hole in the Wall is Nothing to Worry About

Press release

Galerie Richard Paris is pleased to present Sven-Ole Frahm’s fourth exhibition in Paris from September 7 to October 19, 2013. Following the success of his first exhibition at Galerie Richard New York this summer titled A Hole in the Wall is Nothing to Worry About , his exhibition in Paris will be the second part. Galerie Richard Paris has been representing this German artist since 2007. The artist assigns a new role to the canvas by using the material instead of the painted pictorial gesture, which also allows him to add the third dimension in painting. His works are distinguished by the high quality of their compositions, which allows him to experiment with new means of expression.

The title “A hole in the wall is not something to worry about” expresses the idea that artistic practice is one of experimentation, of taking risks. For his first paintings, the canvas placed on the ground, he deposited a liquid acrylic paint on it which spread according to the relief of the ground. Then he deliberately destroyed the work by cutting it with scissors into straight lines and simple geometric shapes. He put the pieces of the puzzle together by sewing them meticulously and patiently with a professional sewing machine. Sven-Ole Frahm continues this process of destruction-creation, dear to the economist Joseph Schumpeter, a process of deconstruction in the spirit of Jacques Derrida, by expanding it with new interventions on the web.

In recent works we find few traces of paint that define forms. The paint is mostly applied in streaks that evenly cover the painted section. Gradually Sven-Ole Frahm replaces the means of expression of painting with new means that relate to the very use of the material of the canvas. Geometric shapes are stitched painted canvas, canvas additions are sewn only on the top border, letting gravity take over. The seams replace the design by the discretion of their presence.

Even more, in these new works, he cuts the canvas with a cutter in the shape of a U, creating strips of canvas of the same color which stand out naturally. He cuts the canvas into geometric shapes forming holes in the canvas which, depending on the places, reveal the frame. Conversely, he develops the third dimension by creating pyramidal shapes composed of stitched triangles. For the first time, we will discover at the Parisian exhibition several paintings with holes from which he kept part of the canvas to form strappings in the shape of an outer tube. A painting whose canvas is devoid of any paint is pierced by a single circle, but this one is circled by several strips of painted canvas sewn to each other, forming a sculptural tubing which can be appreciated with a look perpendicular to the frame . Sven-Ole Frahm encourages us in his new paintings to experiment with a new way of apprehending and appreciating them by moving to obtain several points of view.

To the materiality and sensuality of the raw canvas, the fineness of the seams, the hanging threads, the third dimension in painting, is added a minimal aesthetic more inclined to engender a Platonic conceptual pleasure. By manipulating several techniques on the same work, he makes antagonistic aesthetic orders coincide. If the spectator delights in the details, such as the colored reflections in the holes which come from paintings affixed to the back of the canvas, the gaze always returns to the holistic view which justifies each element. Each work can be analyzed in a controlled superposition of different layers of compositions.

Sven-Ole Frahm, born in 1972, lives and works in Berlin. He graduated from the Kunst Akademie in Düsseldorf in 2001. Frahm won the prestigious German prize for painting, the Bergischer Kunstpreis at the Solingen Art Museum in 2006. He took part in the Compilation III exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf in 2007. His works are shown regularly in Europe in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam and Düsseldorf and now in New York.