Details
MATTHIAS WEISCHER (B.1973)
Wurm
signed and dated 'M.WEISCHER 8/2000' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
150 x 200cm.
Painted in 2000
Provenance
Saatchi Gallery, London.
Galerie EIGEN+ART, Leipzig/Berlin.
Private Collection, Essen.
Anon. sale, Philips New York, 31 March 2008, lot 77.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.
Exhibited
Leipzig, Galerie Kleindienst, Matthias Weischer, Malerie, 2001 (illustrated).
Sale Room Notice
Please note that the starting bid is lowered to 30,000 EUR.
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Lot Essay

Along with other German artists from his generation, such as Tim Eitel and Tilo Baumgärtel, Matthias Weischer belongs to a group of artists commonly referred to as the Neue Leipziger Schule. This movement of young artists, mainly representational painters who studied at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts, share a commitment to a new form of figurative art, although their works reveal different styles and subject-matters.

In Wurm, Weischer deals with a classical genre: the landscape scene. Here, the artist manages to renew the genre with the same kind of devices he uses for his eerie, multi-layered interiors. Indeed his paintings masterfully convey a disturbing ambiance which has to do with the fact that all human presence seems to have deserted the space, and we are left with bits and pieces of a somnambulant scene, which has happened without the viewer at some undetermined time. Here, like in a dream, the house is not connected to the ground and seems to be half-floating on the dark pond in the background. A form of surrealism permeates this pseudo naïve view with its little wooden house and trees. The curvaceous pipe like element in the foreground for example instils an enigmatic feeling to the scene. But this very mysterious impression is more important than the actual explanation of whether it is a worm as suggested by the title or an overgrowing invasive imaginary plant. The artist often places that kind of prop in his works and the riddle it creates becomes more significant than the actual solution. The apparent momentum of the scene conveyed by the bright blue sky and the scattered logs on the yellow grass is contradicted by the absence of window or doors into the house. This creates a claustrophobic impression and reminds us that the lack of human presence is the true subject of the work.

Matthias Weischer's creations are built on surprise and improbable constructions, exploiting the unsettled mood of the viewer. Paintings become explorations of form and space with no given logic that leave us bewildered.

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