2016 Kurt Benning
15 September 2016 to 17 July 2017
Kurt Benning
BURGTRESWITZMENSCH
»The subject of decay, which continues to interest me, poses itself to me in a different way today than it did earlier on. In it, I see a process of rearrangement, a change in condition, an energy that transfers one defined thing into another. We know only very little about this energy. We may only describe it indirectly, by way of the results.« (Kurt Benning, 1977)
The ongoing interest in the biography of the individual serves as impetus for Kurt Benning's large project »Burgtreswitzmensch« (Treswitzcastleman), which he has been working on for more than 40 years. In it, he approaches persons by way of »what they have left behind« – things, personal objects, documents, drawings, writings. As relics, these tell something about the dreams and visions of their former owners. As documents of a time past, they are, on the one hand, evidence of a reality experienced and transported by the artist. However, Kurt Benning also uses them as a departure point for his unbridled research work that takes place in the realm between reality and imagination, the physical and metaphysical, life and death. As an artist and tracker he is aware of strategies of authentification; but he integrates these into an overarching discourse that essentially also feeds on literary means. For Kurt Benning, the past and decay are keys for understanding the world and the individual person and for penetrating into the depths of time.
Kurt Benning was born in 1945 in Pleystein/Oberpfalz. He died on 24 March in Munich. For more information about his work: www.kurt-benning.de
Kurt Benning
BURGTRESWITZMENSCH
»The subject of decay, which continues to interest me, poses itself to me in a different way today than it did earlier on. In it, I see a process of rearrangement, a change in condition, an energy that transfers one defined thing into another. We know only very little about this energy. We may only describe it indirectly, by way of the results.« (Kurt Benning, 1977)
The ongoing interest in the biography of the individual serves as impetus for Kurt Benning's large project »Burgtreswitzmensch« (Treswitzcastleman), which he has been working on for more than 40 years. In it, he approaches persons by way of »what they have left behind« – things, personal objects, documents, drawings, writings. As relics, these tell something about the dreams and visions of their former owners. As documents of a time past, they are, on the one hand, evidence of a reality experienced and transported by the artist. However, Kurt Benning also uses them as a departure point for his unbridled research work that takes place in the realm between reality and imagination, the physical and metaphysical, life and death. As an artist and tracker he is aware of strategies of authentification; but he integrates these into an overarching discourse that essentially also feeds on literary means. For Kurt Benning, the past and decay are keys for understanding the world and the individual person and for penetrating into the depths of time.
Kurt Benning was born in 1945 in Pleystein/Oberpfalz. He died on 24 March in Munich. For more information about his work: www.kurt-benning.de