Content

Preface

The Theatre of the Self, Collection Uziyel, London

Through the Looking Glass, Palazzo Capris, Turin

Der Blick nach Innen, Haus Opherdicke, Kreis Unna

70th International Bergische Art Prize, Kunstmuseum Solingen, Solingen

Figure of Speech, Cassina Projects, New York / curated by Artuner

Fantastically Familiar: The Uncanny Work of David Czupryn

Spotlight: Interview with Eugenio Re Rebaudengo & David Czupryn

Biography / CV

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David Czupryn

Best friend, 2017oil on canvas240 x 180 cm

Alisei Apollonio

Preface

In his surrealist paintings David Czupryn creates fantastic worlds, inhabited by human-oid hybrids and built with materials found at the intersection between nature, man-made polymers and imagination. His practice is mostly informed by a research of the uncanny, conducted from a mostly ‘visceral’ perspective. Indeed, although interested in psychoanalytical theories, Czupryn does not explore them in his works.

Surrealism and Metaphysical art (Salvador Dalì and Giorgio de Chirico in particular) are undoubtedly the first points of reference that come to mind when looking at Czu-pryn’s paintings. However, the artist’s most important sources of inspiration are the works of the photographer Diane Arbus and American artist Matthew Barney.

His technique is seamless: the ‘layer method’ employed by Czupryn is very meticulous and the brushstrokes result invisible. Indeed, the surface of the painting is very flat, while also conveying a sense of deepness and richness of the materials depicted. The synthesis of nature and industrially engineered materials is a very important aspect of the artist’s work.

David Czupryn is born in 1983 in Germany. He graduated from the Düsseldorf Kuns-takademie (2007 – 2015). He studied sculpture with Prof Georg Herold, and then painting in the classes of Lucy McKenzie and Tomma Abts.

Czupryn started his artistic career as a sculptor, with Herold and later decided to focus solely on painting: he stopped sculpting altogether and put all his artworks in a storage. For months, all day long, he would practice on painting techniques, trompe l’oeil in particular, as taught by McKenzie. There has been a turning point in his subject matter in 2012, when he saw a late Gothic grisaille painting of a sculpture. Then, he took his earlier sculptures out of storage and started portraying them in painting.

He now lives and works in Düsseldorf.

THE THEATRE OF THE SELFCOLLECTION UZIYEL, LONDON

The Theatre of the Self, curated by ARTUNER at Freda and Izak Uziyel’s private Collection in Hampstead, London, brings together contemporary German artists David Czupryn and Katja Seib in an extraordinary setting.

Czupryn and Seib have created new paintings in response to contemporary master Thomas Schütte, one of the most im-portant artists of his generation, which will be displayed along-side a number of Schütte’s sculptures from the Uziyels’ pri-vate collection. For this exhibition, Czupryn and Seib will open a window onto parallel worlds, where their characters perform mysterious rituals and performative acts.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASSPALAZZO CAPRIS, TURIN

“With the word ‘magic’, as opposed to ‘mystic’, I wished to indicate that the mystery does not descend to the represented world, but rather hides and palpitates behind it.” - Franz Roh, 1925

Within the historical surroundings of 17th-century Palazzo Capris, ARTUNER is delight-ed to present its third Artissima Week event at the venue: Through the Looking Glass, a group exhibition featuring paintings by contemporary artists Manuele Cerutti, David Czupryn, Patrizio Di Massimo, Ana Elisa Egreja, and Katja Seib.

Magical Realism is arguably one of the most fascinating movements in the art and litera-ture of the 20th century. Evocative and subversive, many artists and writers were attract-ed to it as a means of expression. As a movement, its definition has proved ever-changing and open- ended and, as a result, it still bears relevance today.

The term Magical Realism was originally coined by German photographer, art historian and art critic Franz Roh in 1925 to describe a new wave of Post-Expressionist painting. According to Roh, Magical Realism is characterised by accurate detail, smooth photo-graphic clarity and the portrayal of the ‘magical’ nature of the rational world. The move-ment reflects the uncanniness of our modern technological environment, looking at the mundane through a hyper-realistic, yet often mysterious, lens.

Roh wrote: “We recognise the world, although we look on it with new eyes. We are offered a new style that is thoroughly of this world, that celebrates the mundane… It employs various techniques that endow all things with a deeper meaning and reveal mysteries that always threaten the secure tranquillity of simple and ingenuous things… it is a question of representing before our eyes, in an intuitive way, the fact, the interior figure, of the exterior world.”

The five artists included in this exhibition work predominantly with the medium of figura-tive painting and share some of the characteristics outlined by Roh. Like at the start of the twentieth century, artists today are faced with the challenge of making sense of a rapidly changing world, increasingly dominated by technologies that most of us do not fully comprehend. Such dichotomy triggers a feeling of estrangement which, in the work of these artists, sets the scene for mysterious, uncanny situations; often mundane but, at the same time, magical.

DER BLICK NACH INNEN HAUS OPHERDICKE, KREIS UNNA

A selection of approximately 100 works are currently on display at Kreis Unna, Haus Operdhicke. The title, ‘der Blick nach Innen’ de-fines the notion of ‘introspection’ as a core idea – a thread weaving these 20th-21st century works together analytically. Through this reflexive approach, we can inspect interiors and still lives beyond their formal qualities, more closely, from within. The exhibition pro-poses a shift in perspective: from mere outer appearance to in-depth meanings, from literal to conceptual. We view each painting as a kind of riddle, then, as a visual puzzle pieced together by the artist’s own sense of self. On the one hand, this existential reading of the still life enhances the show’s impact: how introspection can stimulate us in-tellectually to think again and thus better than our initial response to the work. On the other hand, introspection teases out the limitations of the eye in what it can or rather believes it can see. In other words, the still life operates like a trompe l’oeil. It is a catalyst for the artist to manipulate how we see by painting, or ‘performing’ a peculiar kind of visual trick.

The exhibition’s take on the still life avoids a purely descriptive read-ing of the genre so as to open up new possibilities for interpreta-tion: we can activate our subjectivity to alter our perception of the still life, discard preconceived notions, and thus trigger a more re-active approach to it – the suspense embodied in the still life may spark awe, curiosity or even fear in the viewer each still life is more enigmatic than presumed at first glance. Picasso, Beckmann, Klein-schmidt, Nussbaum use this codified genre as a template for visual intrigues. By virtue of its pared down structure and single focus, the still life is the perfect blank page for these artists and many more to transcribe a sensitivity or affect – an air of detachment or solitude in a portrait for example; brooding anxieties echoed in the palette; the meditative quality of fruits, or the interplay of lines in the folds of a table cloth… Nothing is coincidental, the artist seeks to extract the essence of things by hinting at an emotion through tone and texture, and depict it implicitly, in muted form.

70th INTERNATIONAL BERGISCHE ART PRIZEKUNSTMUSEUM SOLINGEN

Düsseldorf-educated artist David Czupryn won the 70th Inter-national Bergische Art Prize and the Kunstmuseum Solingen is showing new work by him. The exhibition will remain open until October 30th 2016.

About the MuseumThe Kunstmuseum Solingen, situated in the region of the Ber-gisches Land (the same as Düsseldorf) houses a permanent col-lection of 10,000 works of art: coupled with its international outlook, it is an important site of preservation of regional herit-age. Indeed, the museum owns the early prints and paintings of Georg Meistermann, one of the most significant German artists of the post-war period – most known for his remarkable stained glass windows across Europe – who was born in Solingen.Another focus of the museum is the presentation of contem-porary art, through its commitment to showing work by emerg-ing, young artists. Indeed, the International Bergische art exhi-bition, now at its 70th edition, is one such occasion, presenting a great opportunity for discovering new talent.

About the PrizeThe prize is for innovative and exciting approaches in the arts, and seeks to award emergent artists who have distinguished themselves both internationally and regionally. David Czupryn was chosen for his ability to merge in his artworks the natu-ral and the man-made, creating illusionistic, almost ‘sculptural’ paintings that “deceive the viewer’s eye”, which is called to “reposition itself”. The jury consisted of: Dr. Thomas A. Lange, Chairman of management National Bank AG; Gisela Elbracht-Iglhaut, Co-Director of Kunstmuseum Solingen; Prof. Markus Karstieß, Artist, Düsseldorf; Dr. Barbara Könches, Department of Visual Arts, Kunststiftung NRW, Düsseldorf; Rouven Lotz, Academic/Scientific Manager, Emil Schumacher Museum, Hagen; Gertrud Peters, Director of KIT Museum – Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf.

David Czupryn was awarded the prize with his “PaleNeonPlas-tics, Radio, Marble etc.” painting. (on the left)

Figure of speech Installation view

Georg Herold Badedas 2015aluminium, Plastic Bottle120 x 125 x 105 cm Parisienne 2012bronze Sculpture360 x 280 x 230 cm

David Czupryn

both at once 2016oil on canvas250 x 180 cmburn after translation 2016oil on canvas190 x 150 cm

Katja Seib

Diva 2016oil and dip dye on canvas170 x 200 cm

FIGURE OF SPEECHCASSINA PROJECTS, NEW YORK, CURATED BY ARTUNER

Figure of Speech is a three-person show featuring the work of David Czupryn, Georg Herold and Katja Seib. A ‘figure of speech’ is a rhetorical device that enriches text with complex layers of significance: it can be a specific arrangement or omission of words, a particular kind of repetition, or a departure from the words’ literal meaning. Some of the most commonly used ones are simile, metaphor, hyperbole, and personification. The use of such devices often refines text by means of bringing sentiments closer to the every-

day, or conversely by elevating simple experiences. This exhibition looks at the practices of three contemporary German artists affiliated with the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Specifically, it explores the ways in which each of them articulates the characters within the different narratives weaved into their works. Indeed, in a way similar to the use of a figure of speech in verbal discourse, Czupryn, Herold and Seib evoke, through the protagonists of their paintings, a plethora of references and affects.

Georg Heroldliver of love 2013 Bronze Lacquered 176 x 380 x 105 cm

David Czupryn primary clock 2016 oil on canvas 190 x 130 cm

David Czupryn lil grl lost the rope 2016 oil on canvas 220 x 140 cm

David Czupryn caesium in egg 2016 oil on canvas 190 x 130 cm

David Czupryn 24 direct never 48 2016 oil on canvas 220 x 140 cm

David Czupryn pseudo twins 2016 oil on canvas 190 x 130 cm

Alisei Apollonio

Fantastically Familiar:the Uncanny Work of David Czupryn

In his seminal essay ‘The Uncanny’ (1919), Sigmund Freud at-tempts a description of a very peculiar terrifying feeling, known and yet elusive to most human beings, namely, the uncanny. According to many, however, not even the Viennese father of psychoanalysis succeeds in pinning it down exactly. The con-cept still maintains its protean identity, of which two seem to be its most suggestive characteristics.

First, Freud securely links the uncanny to “something long known to us, once very familiar”, perhaps from childhood, and thus introduces the question of the ‘double’. Successively, Un-heimlich (uncanny in German) is described as “the name for everything that ought to have remained […] hidden and secret and has become visible” (Schelling).

On the very first page of ‘The Uncanny’, Freud determines aesthetics as being the main province of the feeling he is try-ing to describe. While he repeatedly uses art as a point of ref-erence in his writings, especially when referring to personal experience, he never officially affiliated himself to any artistic movement. However, by virtue of his exploration of the un-conscious and the realm of dreams, from the very start he was hailed as the “patron saint” (in Freud’s own words) of Surreal-ism – a movement which he actually strongly objected to.

Both Surrealist and Freud’s theories have had a long-lasting impact on the later generations of thinkers and artists. Given the richness of their legacy, every new reading adds texture and complexity to seemingly known concepts.

Such is the case of the German painter David Czupryn, for whom the uncanny is at the core of his artistic enquiry. His intriguing works invite the viewer into a world that is both unfamiliar and evocative, like a dream already dreamt. The painting ‘not born in the same nursery’ (image on the left) is emblematic of Czupryn’s exploration of the uncanny. Even at first glance, one has the distinct sensation that the painting is populated by bizarre anthropomorphic organisms. However, it proves more difficult to rationalise their features. This fact might make one question whether the character is there at all, leaving the viewer with a haunting feeling (see for instance ‘Iron Slab fig. #marxloh’ / Image on the right).

Indeed, a potential trigger for the Unheimlich, one of which Freud however was uncertain, is the doubt whether an object supposed to be inanimate is actually alive. Czupryn’s charac-ters do possess such ambiguous status: the viewer is unsure whether they are extravagant automata or chimerical beings, who evaded the world of fantasy to enter the picture-frame. Freud compares the uncanny feeling to the “sense of helpless-ness” one often experiences in dreams. At times, Czupryn’s characters seem to be trapped in their own dreams, unable to budge, unable to avoid the viewer’s gaze. It is precisely such identification (the viewer knows what it is like to feel helpless in a dream, to have one’s limbs act inconsistently), such subject-object merger, which creates an uncanny situation. Interestingly, in ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ (1900), Freud quotes a line by Schubert which reads: “The dream is the liber-

ation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature, a detachment of the soul from the fetters of matter”. David Czupryn’s oneiric universes have their roots in reality, but the artist uses them like a springboard to conjure up fantastic micro-cosms. Indeed, the artist starts with an observa-tion of nature: he studies plants and minerals, monitors their growth and metamorphosis. He then shifts his attention to syn-thetic materials, plastic plants and polymeric surfac-es.

By imagining hybrid materials and organisms, Czupryn merges nature with science: they constitute the very fabric of these fictional worlds and by virtue of their hyperrealism, they de-ceive the viewer into believing they might exist in real life. But such confusion, after all, is comprehensible: we live sur-rounded by industrially produced materials that imitate nature, while more and more often nature itself is tweaked to resem-ble man-made perfection. Perhaps this is the reason why our encounter with David Czupryn’s paintings is so uncanny: they reproduce the creation mechanisms of contemporary reality and yet, we don’t recognise them.

rotten ronny 2016oil on canvas170 x 130 cm

page before: Installation viewMaschinenhaus Essen

Spotlight: Interview with Eugenio Re Rebaudengo & David Czupryn

Eugenio Re Rebaudengo (ERR): How did you come to paint-ing as your preferred form of expression? You began as a sculptor, what influenced you to painting?

David Czupryn (DC): Yes, I began as a sculptor. I was studying at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie with Georg Herold, when I decided to switch to Lucy McKenzie’s class. She held work-shops on painting techniques, mostly trompe l’oeil – she had a very technique-based style of teaching. So I began studying painting: one week per month, five days a week, from 9 AM to 5 PM, with only one hour break.

I stopped doing my own art and focused on these exercises instead – I practiced before and after the workshops, everyday. I had to put all my previous works, the sculptures, in storage along with all the materials, tools and machines.

After about a year I had started on this new path, I saw a late-Gothic grisaille painting of a sculpture in a niche. Then I thought “Ok, let’s paint your own sculptures like this”. I thought it was a fun idea, so I got some of my earlier polychrome artworks out of storage and started portraying them. So I did my first painting in 2012.

ERR: Can you talk to us about your technique? How do you achieve such a “flatness” in your paintings, especially as there are multiple layers to them?

DC: I’m using a layer technique to achieve consistency. Most importantly, I apply the paint on the canvas as ‘flat’ as pos-sible, so that it looks quite even. However, I do not want my paintings to look like a photograph or a digital print, with a very compact surface. That is a flatness that I don’t want.

One reason why technique is so important is the different characteristics of the materials I depict in my paintings.In nature, every opaque material has a special kind of ‘deep-ness’. I want to represent these traits … So the layer technique

is perfect for that, because the pigment is lying on top of other pigments, and that gives the painting a peculiar colourfulness.

I create such ‘flatness’ since I don’t want to paint an image that suggests an ‘endless’ deep space, or one that has a horizon. In fact, the settings are not very spacious. Since the background is very narrow, the objects in the foreground appear closer to the viewer: they appear as being physically between the back-ground and the viewer.

The plainest way of developing a background in my paintings is to portray a material – such as a wooden or marble board. In

such cases, I start with an architectural setting which shrinks or expands the format of the canvas – only then I proceed to the foreground.

Another way of achieving the ‘flatness’ is the light-setting. I don’t use direct light sources – the lighting is comparable to the one used by the photographers couple Becher. It is called ‘Bernd and Hilla Becher Weather’, which means that is noon and cloudy. The light does not shine on an object directly, it is not dramatic and shadows are soft. In this way the lighting is more identifiable with the atmosphere in the room where the paintings are hanging.

ERR: It’s very clear that it is very important for you to create a feeling of the uncanny. Can you talk to us about why?

DC: I feel a connection to it. I have a special interest in objects, books, films and artworks that are dealing with the uncanny. I also have a collection of objects which to me are suggestive of that feeling when I look at and think about them.

I remember I was visiting a show in the Musée d’Orsay in Par-is, ‘Crime et Châtiment’, and I saw some puppets made by a prisoner from 19th century. He made these voodoo puppets representing the jailers. Also, there was a wooden door from a prison cell where a prisoner had carved the name ‘David’ – the thought that is was made by a human, a prisoner in another time… That felt uncanny.

‘Uncanny’ does not signify only ‘horrifying’ to me. It means more. Sigmund Freud comes very close to give a definition to it with his essay ‘Das Unheimliche’ (‘The Uncanny’).

Also, there are many artists dealing with this concept, since for human beings it is rather common to experience such feeling. It is possible to trace the developing interest about this topic in both cultural and art history. There is always someone deal-ing with it – it is like a central theme without being a central theme.

ERR: Is your work informed by metaphysical art and/or surrealism? Artists such like de Chirico or Dali, are they an inspiration? And if not, what other artists?

DC: Yes, as I mentioned before they also deal with this ‘central theme’. These two artists are definitely amongst the ones who inspire me, and I am aware that their work is very complex and I cannot reduce them to the uncanny only. Some more artists that inspire me are: Hieronymous Bosch, Arnold Böck-lin, Ferdinand Cheval, Alfred Kubin for example. But the two artists who are my all time favourite inspirations are Diane Arbus and Matthew Barney.

ERR: Are you interested in psychoanalysis and is this something you’re keen on exploring in your work?

DC: Yes, I’m interested in Sigmund Freud, Pierre Bourdieu, Mikhail Bakhtin, Marshall McLuhan… but I don’t explore it in my work.

ERR: Some of your works appear to have anthro-pomorphic forms/characters, such as “rotten_ron-ny”, what role do these protagonists play? Would you say that there is a narrative element to your works?

DC: I’m not working primarily on narration. How-ever the story behind the figure is the motor behind the development of a figurative painting. When I’m working on a character I try render it very focused: the most important attributes are sharpened and I switch between psychopathy and empathy to figure its personality out.

ERR: You seem interested in art history and works by other artists, sculpture in particular. What is the reason behind including some works, such as Mike Kelley and Isa Genzken, in your own paintings?

DC: I use them as a way to explore how sculptures ‘work’ in a painting.

ERR: There are some characters and shapes that seem to appear recurrently in your paintings, is that the case?

DC: Yes, definitely. If I realise that there is a figure I can work with – in a different setting, but dealing with the same topic – I use it several times. In this case I make a cardboard template of it. For ex-ample, the painting ‘(fig.) of H)33d5’ is based on drawings which I made of drug addicted women living in my neighbourhood. The painting with the same figure ‘rotten_ronny’ is about an acquaint-ance who died very young of a drug overdose. And the third one, which is specular but is the same outline, represents a former good friend of mine who also struggles with drug abuse.

ERR: The illusionistic scenarios of your works often consist of marble, wood and concrete tex-tures. What draws you to the use of these lifelike patterns and consistencies? Also, are you inter-ested in study of plant forms biology?

DC: Mostly I use lifelike patterns and consisten-cies alongside artificial, faked, engineered materi-als to create a clash.

However, yes, I also study natural materials to un-derstand how marble, wood, plants, etc… grow. It is important for conveying the authenticity of the depicted surfaces. But a while ago I started mak-ing drawings and studies of plastic plants and oth-er synthetic materials. Then I compared natural materials with ‘fake’ ones produced by industries. So I started to synthesise them in my paintings, to show materials from another artificial point of view.

1983 Duisburg, Germany

studied at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf2008-2011 Prof. Georg Herold 2011-2013 Prof. Lucy McKenzie, Meisterbrief2013-2015 Prof. Tomma Abts, Akademiebrief

2010 Scolarship Freunde und Förderer der Kunstakademie Düsseldorfdorf, Cite des Arts Paris 2014 Förderpreis Meererbusch2016 70. International bergischer Artprize

2017 Magical Realism, Palazzo Capris, Torino, IT The Theatre of the Self, Collection Uziyel, London, GB Der Blick nach Innen, Museum Haus Opherdicke, Unna, GE Ghosting, Storage Capacité, Europe / EU Fondazione Sandretto ReRebaudengo at Palexpo, Genf / CHE

2016 Figure of Speech, Artuner at Cassina Projects, New York / USA Int. bergischer Kunstpreis, Kunstmuseum Solingen, Solingen / GE do boomerangs always come back?, Castle oud Rekem, Rekem / BEL So I turned myself to face me, Marlborough Contemporary Gallery, London / GB 2015 Spotlight, Artuner, London / GB Stealth and Days, Maschinenhaus Essen, Essen / GE Imagine, Londondonewcastle Projectspace, London / GB

2014 TrånsĹuzid, Schloss Reuschenberg, Neuss / GE Die mit der Liebe spielen, Palazzo Guaineri delle Cossere, A+B Gallery, Brescia / IT Previewspective, Beethovenstr. 27, Cologne / GE

Lives and works in Düsseldorf

David Czupryn

born

education

selected exhibitions