TAL RThe Elephant behind the Clown

Born in Tel Aviv in 1967 and living today in Copenhagen, the artist became famous for his seemingly naïvely painted abstractions, in which some viewers have been happy to detect a visual goulash, or simply to celebrate the values of artistic expression and its autonomy, long thought dead. Alongside a simple abstraction of figurative signs, it was above all the strong colours, deployed by way of a strictly chosen palette, that stood out. The paintings impressed through their calculated and colourful radiance. For some time now TAL R has been changing the figuration in his paintings, leading their abstraction back into a form that appears stylised and standardised, which might be described as a state one step short of abstraction proper; the ornamental, too, thus clearly recedes. This move towards the classical is supported by a complete break with his previous techniques. Instead of impasto oil paint, a mixture of rabbit-skin glue and pigments is now applied directly to unprimed canvas, so that a fresco-like tone dominates the surface.

Exhibition:
Kunstverein in Hamburg, 09/04 – 13/06/2011