Todd Koelmel & Skenar73

Todd Koelmel & Skenar73

The depicted sunset evokes a mood that allows us to reflect on the daily image of the setting sun. A balance emerges. Koelmel juxtaposes the respect for the beauty of nature with the longing for beauty and perfection. He makes visible that this daily natural wonder plays a central role in our lives—the end of a day and the promise of a new one. The more reduced this visual representation is, the more space it creates for thought. This dynamic can be extended to other phenomena, and in Todd Koelmel's work, it eventually encompasses an entire universe. This is due in no small part to Koelmel's geometric painting, where the surface is remarkably textured, enhancing the illusion of standing before a landscape.

What is important in life? It is not just the ABCs, as Wilhelm Busch once noted, but the alphabet is a building block upon which our knowledge is based. So, when a writer like Skenar 73 dedicates 26 works to it, one might wonder what he thought while creating each letter. Does he have a particular fondness for certain letters? Are there shapes that appeal to him more? Which letters appear most frequently in his work? Perhaps he aims to transport us to distant times, possibly bringing the rounded forms of arabesques, a symbol of masterful collaboration between education and craftsmanship, into the present day. The alphabet and the resulting script have certainly been a foundation of our societies for 2,500 years. The first evidence of cuneiform inscriptions, such as the commands of Persian King Darius, dates back that far. These inscriptions were multilingual, which not only contributed to the deciphering of the letters but also encouraged people from different nations to mutually respect laws. We might also simply think of the letters that begin our own names, how words can form from these 26 letters, and perhaps recall our childhood, when we first learned to write and began discovering words everywhere that we could decipher.

In the case of the upcoming exhibition, another component comes into play alongside the content of the works: both artists engage, in a highly entertaining way, with the apparent contrast between abstraction and representation. They work in the 21st century, and it’s obvious that we, as viewers, can decide for ourselves how to perceive the works. The pieces seem to move, to float: is the alphabet an abstract or a highly concrete form of perception—after all, we use it to write—or does our brain want to experience the beautiful sunset as even more stunning in the image, because it prefers to play with abstract perception or perhaps to switch between both? You can explore this with the artworks. Even our own willingness to view something abstractly in the moment—or, conversely, concretely—turns the viewing experience into a puzzle.

Since the debates over new art forms a hundred years ago, and the battles between abstraction and representation, the horizon of how we view art has broadened and enriched. This is stimulating for each of us, and observing that our thinking becomes more creative through the mysteries of art is encouraging. Modern artworks open up a multitude of intellectual possibilities, regardless of the subject. If we play with these ideas, they can prove useful in our lives as well. What’s interesting in this exhibition is that the color worlds of both artists also seem to be in harmony.