Kornfeld Gallery is very pleased to present the exhibition vi - ew with new works by the Munich-based artist Hubertus Hamm.

With his art he creates something magical and lively. Under the umbrella term "vi - ew", the exhibition brings together objects from twelve different groups of works. All of them are about the fleeting image. A work of art can only come into being when it is looked at. Man becomes part of his art by entering into an interaction between the objects and himself.

In "Portrait XI" Hubertus Hamm refers to the "Black Paintings", which are abstract, black paintings that the artists of the New York School in the USA have painted since the 1950s. Viewed from the side, Hubertus Hamm's pieces look like a closed, dark, opaque surface. This opacity is lifted as soon as the square painting is viewed frontally. If you move from one side of the picture to the other, you will encounter different surfaces. These reflect fragmentarily the space and the viewer. One could feel this as if one's own life cycle is mirrored: One emerges from the dark, sees oneself, and dives back into the dark. In this series, Hamm takes the mirror selfie to absurdity, as the camera can only see and photograph itself.

In his Moulded Mirror series, the reflections blur. With the reflective metal panels, the artist counteracts his fascination with photography. Here, too, he becomes an unintentional director. Without a viewer, there is no image - in contrast to a photograph, which always depicts something.

Hubertus Hamm began early to explore the parameters of photography in order to test boundaries. He always understood his photographs as independent objects and not as images. By superimposing different layers, tearing, folding and bending the material, he entered into three-dimensionality. Metal, glass, ceramics and other foreign materials are what the artist uses as mediums.

Portrait IX is a frontal portrait of a woman. On the right side, Hubertus Hamm has scraped off the paint pigments so that the canvas is exposed. Like an afterimage created when one looks into the sun and then closes one's eyes, the face continues dimly on the white surface. The scraped pigments are found as a small heap below the picture. There also lies the scalpel that the artist used for his intervention.


vi – ew