ART CITIES: Copenhagen-Philip Grözinger
Philip Grözinger ist a German contemporary artist who studied art at the Braunschweig University of Art (HBK). His art derives from his investigations of future-oriented visions. With his individualistic painterly signature he invites the viewer to join him on a surreal journey through the pictorial traditions of the Pop culture of recent decades.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galerie Mikael Andersen Archive
If there were such a thing, Grözinger’s works could be classified as Virtual Surrealism. Figures in space suits, black manikins and other figures encounter one another in a fictional cosmos. In painterly manner, Grözinger combines lurid contrasts with delicate, pastel-like shades. His paint application is based on that of miniature painting and gives the cartoon-like creatures human features as it draws the viewer into the artist’s fantasy world. Against a background of abstract worlds they tell stories which follow their own physical laws. Philip Grözinger’s solo exhibition “Mit Farben ins Universum” with 29 new colorful drawings that the painter created in a month of Mallorca residency, using 120 colored pencils and a drawing pad. He has been drawing for ten years and says, “I‘m not deterred by the fact that I don‘t think I can do it.” A leitmotif of his work: overcoming fear. Great role model: Pac-man. The computer game hero, in edgy 80s graphics, faces his evil spirits, always, whether they confront him as a mop or as a dog. The higher the level, the faster the game – an analogy to life. In Grözinger‘s works, Pac-man is the companion of his main character: a genderless being ranging from dark blue-gray to pink. We watch him wander through the romantic landscape – à la Böcklin and Friedrich – of “lemons, oranges, pines, sheep,” straight toward the sea. A tiny sailing ship glides on the water, symbol of the longing for escape to a place without technology. For again and again cables snake across the green, transmission towers and ominous pipes rise up, crawling out of the meadow or into it. They disturb the idyll, the Arcadia. Fear of AI and environmental destruction preoccupy the artist, who was born in Braunschweig in 1972 and who demonstrated against nuclear power as a child. But fear does not dominate him. He spreads a kaleidoscope of colors over the cloudy thoughts. Like a patchwork quilt, he lays them over the hilly landscape and his little figure in between: highly content with headphones and beer. Step close and you think you can hear him humming: ”I‘m a fat pink man and I shine light with light.“ and indeed his pro- tagonist projects light into space again and again and is not even fazed by the wind. With puffy cheeks and beady eyes, he sweeps across it like the gods in mythological tales. Once, the wonders of the world were explained by attributing them to Zeus and his entourage. So it is the Greek god of wind Aiolos who propels us on over the rainbow, out of the Galaxy into Grözinger‘s studio in Berlin-Schöneberg, a large room with space to draw circles over splashes and tubes of paint on the ground. It is not in his works, which open a dystopian vision of the future alongside references to art history and pop culture, that the madness takes place, but in the midst of us, for as Philip Grözinger aptly summarizes: ”The real absurdity, after all, is that of being human.“
Photo: Philip Grözinger, Untitled, 2022, crayon on paper, 29,7 x 42 cm, © Philip Grözinger, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Mikael Andersen
Info: Curator: Suzan Kizilirmak, Galerie Mikael Andersen, Bredgade 63, Copenhagen, Denmark, Duration: 24/8-24/9/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 12:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-15:00, http://mikaelandersen.com/
