Stefan Kübler

www.Stefan-Kuebler.com

Stefan Kübler’s paintings are behind glass. On a glass panel he paints numerous layers of acrylic paint. Once the paint has dried up, he sticks the canvas over it and pulls it off with the paint from the glass panel and spans the canvas back up.

Through the thus resulting inversion he plays with the classic perception of the work. The viewer has to change positions in order to understand the canvas. Only from a close glance it becomes visible how smooth the surface is. Because there is to haptic trace, the traces of paint gather their own presence. The skin of the image becomes the skin of the colour in which the image is set. The view is irritated by the shine of the smooth layer of paint and by the smoothness and intensity of colour. 

With this technique Kübler researches the functioning of the image itself. He questions the mechanisms of construction of reality and perception. In a culture full of images that are reduced to their content of information at once and are fast digested, Kübler proposes the rehabilitation of the view and invites the viewer to re-perceive the experience of viewing. 

Kübler’s paintings are on-site fabrications. Nearly all shown works are from a series that the artist did in his grand mother’s house before it was demolished. The traditionally-rich restaurant  »Rössle« was an institution in the small town of Geislingen in Baden-Wuerttemberg. Since 1732 the »Rössle« has been known. Since 1915 it belonged to the family Kübler. Since then there have been family parties at the »Rössle«. Alone more than 1000 weddings have been celebrated there.

Not only the building itself is now history, also the view of Kübler through the glass cannot be seen any longer. The viewer sees the original rooms mirror-inverted. The glass panel is similar to a screen where everything takes place and can be viewed. Kübler makes the place of fabrication to an artifact itself. His behind glass paintings reflect the events. The works can create a discourse about »real« memory. The result is not foreseeable. It stays an experiment at the cutting point of perception and imagination.