German Printmakers

Various Artists

Birgit Langhammer | Antje Rietsch | Silke Andrea Schmidt | Oliver Raszewski | Magda Boltz-Wilson

This exhibition is part of Print Houston 2013 and presents five German printmakers. Three of them work and live here in Houston and two have been invited from Germany to represent their perspective on this medium. While referring to or incorporating the classic printmaking techniques invented in Germany like etching, woodcut or lithography, all the artists shown here have ventured into the realm of digital representation. In this exhibition are also nine classical German graphic artists from Erich Heckel to Sigmar Polke in order to provide the historical connection. Germany’s recent political upheavals, starting with the fall of the Berlin wall and other societal changes have inspired artists like Magda Boltz-Wilson to create her “Phoenix from the Ashes” series of urban and cultural renewal. The German fascination with nature and spirituality, a basic tenet of the Romantic Movement, resonates in the works of Antje Rietsch and Birgit Langhammer. Silke Andrea Schmidt goes one step further and contemplates the subjugation of nature by a technology-crazed society and the disturbed relationship between man and his environment. Her work can be seen as a healing rite to reconnect with the forces of nature like so much art by Joseph Beuys. Oliver Raszewski is considered a pioneer in experimental digital printing techniques blurring the boundaries from “pixel to pigment”. In his digitally generated art he is not primarily interested in formal virtuosity, rather he considers his work a metaphor for a constantly changing society, restlessly reinventing itself and its communication vocabulary.