“Als wär nichts geschehn” (As If Nothing Has Happended) is the title of Stefan Vogel’s second solo exhibition at SCHÖNEWALD, Dusseldorf. It is the first exhibition created within the scope of his fellowship at the Villa Massimo in Rome. It includes 30 individual works and props. Stefan Vogel’s oeuvre offers a variety of approaches. In his drawings, paintings, collages and installations minimalist and materialistic expression, abstraction and concrete poetry meet as well as aspects of the ready-made and conceptual strategies.
“What works and projects was Stefan Vogel able to realise during his fellowship?” Thanks to a grid of nails, there were new exhibitions in Studio 5 on an almost daily basis. It is fair to say that Stefan Vogel produced new works every day. Many works remained ephemeral because they were site-specific. Several series with different leitmotifs were created or at least begun in Rome. The exhibition “Als wär nichts geschehn” (As If Nothing Had Happened) will show what happened to the black-and-white photographs of the flowers in the garden of Villa Massimo and to the two large canvases that were stretched in Rome but never worked on. The calendar with photographic papers, one of which Vogel put in his pocket every day during his stay in Rome to be developed in the evening, also bears witness to his daily work. The fact that Stefan Vogel does not want to separate life from art is evident in his use of mattresses, plates, and kitchen towels, which inspire reflections on interior and exterior, boundaries and intimacy, as well as on composition and decoration. Photographs of the famous wall of Villa Massimo serve as sketches for future battle scenes. The large canvases entitled Largo are frottages from the last days of Vogel’s stay in Rome: they were taken from the gravel ground of Villa Massimo using the gardener’s electric vehicle.” (Dr. Julia Draganović, Villa Massimo, Rome)
“I wanted to paint the LARGO pictures at the end/when I moved out. That’s what I did. To wit: When someone came to visit us, the person usually came with rolling suitcases. On the way, there were traces of the suitcase, which were then removed by the house technicians with a small car and a grid behind it. When I thought that I also leave tracks in the villa, I smoothened them with a screen behind my car when leaving the villa, too. These are now the LARGO pictures. All three hang in the exhibition. They are 240 x 200 cm each. For classification: I always produce in a place, where I stay longer, a kind of imprint or site specific painting, which I then name accordingly.” (Stefan Vogel). Thus, he creates an archive of his everyday life that could be read like a psychogram.
“Stefan Vogel’s residency was like a gigantic firework in black, white, and shades of grey, with sparingly but brilliantly placed colours. Has the Villa Massimo ever seen a more prolific artist? I don’t think so.” (Dr. Julia Draganović, Villa Massimo, Rome)
About the artist:
* 1981, born in Fürth. Vogel brings together drawing, writing and form in a dense unity of work and life. In 2012 he graduated from the HFBK Hamburg and received the Villa Romana Prize in 2016. In 2019 he participated in “Jetzt! Young Painting in Germany”. In 2020 he exhibited at the Böttcherstraße Art Award in Bremen. In 2021 the Overbeck Society of the Kunstverein Lübeck presented a solo exhibition followed by a solo show at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, namely “Relax, it’s only paranoia” and “Where the yellow spot is and the parietal hair lies, there it hurts” at the Tichy Ocean Foundation in Zurich, both in 2022. He completed his Villa Massimo scholarship (9/22 – 6/23) in Rome this year. Works by the artist are in major collections including Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Bundeskunstsammlung, Langen Foundation, G2 Kunsthalle, Leipzig and Philara Collection, Düsseldorf.
