Hannes Broecker

Hannes Broecker’s pictures formally defy the classical means of presenting an exhibition and seem to be marching at the observer full force, as if against a moving barricade. Layering shines through as a major motive – layers of an incidental kind of directness, layers of marshall-and-destroy. The denials, blockades, and verbal “anti-” statements that are integrated echo the heartbeat of graffiti and hip-hop to the observer as they directly cite the rebellious gestures of street art.

Hannes Broecker has another means of projecting the tone of his paintings in his sculptures and object installations as well: Most of the three-dimensional works are at least partially painted. In a world chock-full of conventional presentations, his sculptures seem to be even more of a balancing act between aggression and seduction than do his pictures: They obstruct entryways and defy insight, yet they entice the observer with the vivid force of strong colors as well as with unusual surfaces and materials like painted mattresses, tarred wooden planks and concrete-encased bubble wrap.

Johannes Schmidt