Superheroes in Front of the Auschwitz Gates Meet Sensitive Paintings
MIAMI, FL, USA, March 15, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ — The Carl Kruse Arts Blog invites all to a retrospective of the Russo-German artist Yury Kharchenko taking place at the Krefelder Kunstverein in Krefeld (near Düsseldorf), Germany, that runs from March 25 to May 1, 2022.
The solo exhibition presents two contrasting cycles of the artist: (1) figures of superheroes in front of the gates of Auschwitz and (2) a series of sensitive paintings featuring houses and flowers.
Yury Kharchenko, born in Moscow in 1986, came to Dortmund, Germany, with his family in 1998 as a Jewish refugee and has been living mainly in Berlin for the past twelve years. His examination of Jewish identity begins in his paintings that reflect on his own family history and the anti-Semitism he experienced in Germany. His grandfather changed the name Grynszpan to Kharchenko in order to hide the family connection to Herschel Grynszpan and thus be spared anti-Semitic attacks. Herschel Grynszpan was the 17-year-old Jewish boy who shot the Nazi attaché Ernst vom Rath, which Hitler used as a pretext for the Kristallnacht pogroms. Seventy years after, grandson Yury Kharchenko has experienced a new level of anti-Semitism in Germany and in his art, reflects on this and on his Jewish identity. For Kharchenko, art and life are one. He paints pictures of Herschel Grynszpan and portraits of other Jewish personalities such as Siegmund Freud, Franz Kafka or Alfred Flechtheim, who founded the avant-garde of the 1930s. He has also portrayed modern personalities such as Amy Winehouse.
All of this culminates in his most recent Auschwitz images, in which characters such as Superman, Batman, Scrooge McDuck and from TV series such as Beavis and Butthead pose in front of the Auschwitz gates. The artist thus wrestles with the question of the utopia of heroism. At the same time, Karchenko points to a visible decline in the German culture of holocaust remembrance, which no longer really fulfills its task of remembering, but is increasingly becoming a hanger of political correctness. For Kharchenko, the memory threatens to turn into a trash story. "That mustn't happen, we need an ethical component," he says.
His most recent works are flower paintings. Large works, two meters high depict sunken plants, stems with buds or flowers, and unfolded roses, a river of colors flowing down in various rainbow tones. The flower as a theme encompasses a new cycle. The artist sees in it a connection to nature and life, but also to change and transience. If his Auschwitz paintings deal with an existential confrontation with the horror of the 20th century, his new flower pictures point to the visualization of the urge to live, which unfolds in the shadow of the omnipresent abyss of the world. For Kharchenko, this reflects the theme of hope, which he also takes up in his house pictures. In a rather abstract form of representation, the house becomes a symbol of refuge and an ambivalent ‘being at home.” With the contrasting coexistence of the groups of works mentioned, the artist wants to make the viewer think.
From June 10th to the end of August 2022, Yury Kharchenko has another solo exhibition at the Richard Haizmann Museum for Modern Art in Niebüll. The exhibition is in cooperation with the Emil Nolde Museum in Seebüll. There will be an artist talk with Dr. Christian Ring, who is the director and estate administrator of the Nolde Museum.
The exhibit at the Krefelder Kunstverein opens Friday, 25 March 2022 at 7:00 p.m and goes until 1 May 2022.
Welcome introduction and artist talk by Kay Heymer, Head of Modern Art of the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf.
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About the Krefelder Kunstverein: The Krefelder Kunstverein is part of the diverse cultural landscape in Krefeld, Germany. The focus of the institute's work is on the promotion of contemporary arts, photography, architecture and monument preservation. https://krefelder-kunstverein.de
About the Carl Kruse Arts Blog: Since 2016, the Carl Kruse Art Blog known as “Ars Lumens” has profiled the work of artists, past and present, focusing on wide-ranging movements in art history from Realism to Optical Art and covering topics from the Renaissance to the MONA Museum in Tasmania. The blog is curated by Carl Kruse from Miami, Florida, who currently lives in Berlin, Germany.
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