Meanwhile, the artist lives out his new freedom in canvas painting for a good six years.

Still during his art studies with Johannes Geccelli at the Berlin University of the Arts (now the University of the Arts), Dittmar Krüger, who since 2017 calls himself Dittmar Danner aka Krüger, had left canvas painting to experiment with industrial materials and to bind the painting in a sculptural wall cube, which is multifaceted over time, to investigate the relationship of painting and form, certainly also with the aspiration that the painting radiate out of the box into the room, which he has also succeeded in many ways.

Viewers often assumed that the artist was working with neon light, so powerfully did the colors radiate within the wall box and out into the room, amplified by the Plexiglas he had intricately worked on, which protected and formally closed off the wall object from the outside, literally 'flinging' the color outward. The exhibition title evoked exactly the facts that the artist was interested in. Color is nothing more than light in a particular wavelength.&#x20;

One of the last wall object paintings of 2017 focuses on multiplying the principle of the frame through the box inward to infinity in a variety of colors, formally to the point.

This work, called “Untitled (03-2017)”, which is also on view in the current exhibition, could also be seen as a prelude to what is to come, the radical break with painting in the wall box.

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Dittmar Krüger, who at this time gave himself his new artist name, adopting the maiden name Danner of his Austrian mother for himself, wanted to clarify the artistic new beginning also with his new name.

Back to the roots, back to the beginning of painting on the classic square of the canvas.

And the 'framework' is still the defining theme. There are now almost 100 pictorial works in a wide variety of sizes that he has created since then. And it does not get boring!

The artist has taken care of that: The frame, which actually frames something qua nature, something – in a figurative sense – also constrains, thus could take away the freedom to be itself, means freedom for him, however. The 'framework' is the only rule he imposes on himself. In it, however, freedom is pure.&#x20;

By the way, it should be noted that the word creation framework is a linguistic auxiliary construction, because Dittmar Danner aka Krüger would not be the conceptual abstract and analytical painter, if he does not just play with these terms visually and cognitively. Is it a frame or not a surface after all, is it in front of it or perhaps behind it? The staggering of the overlapping color surfaces to the center of the canvas in decreasing size means confusion. It is a conundrum with the before and behind and at the same time gives the artist the freedom to distinguish the individual color surfaces from each other, to send them into a competition, to compete or to complement each other. But also: to expose a streaky 'thrown down' surface against a statuesque, resting in itself, appearing monochrome and almost like an exact 'line surface'. Harmonious color concordances can arise, but also oblique, iridescent almost unbearably psychedelic colors expanding into neon pop. There are no limits to the variety. The arbitrariness, however, is! Each work is created in long working steps and is tested in painting on the canvas. The analytically working painter in search of his image.

And of them he creates only individuals!


Dittmar Danner aka Krüger – You want it darker, let's kill the flame!

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