DIRK SALZ

Insights into growing a collection

11/27/21–15.5.22

Finale - in football it would be a final, for the museum of the Palatinate District Association, which is primarily dedicated to art from the 19th century to the present, it is the upcoming exhibition that brings together numerous acquisitions and donations from the past three decades into a varied course . The show thus honors the achievements of Britta E. Buhlmann, who, as director between 1994 and 2021, expanded and decisively shaped the museum's art collection. In the spring of 2022, there will be a change at the top of the mpk. The director took one last look at purchases and donations and made a very personal selection from them – a Director's Cut to say goodbye.

Visiting numerous trade fairs and exhibitions, meeting and working with artists have been welcome opportunities for Britta Buhlmann and her team to acquire new works for the museum over the past few decades. The donations that artists, collectors and galleries have bestowed on the house are also extensive. Some of the works were acquired as additions to existing collections, while others are unique positions which, over the years, have combined to form an overview of contemporary artistic approaches. On the one hand, numerous styles and on the other hand, thematic complexes emerge, which were and are brought to the attention of our visitors at irregular intervals through temporary exhibitions.

Classic Modernism was expanded through important works by Otto Dix, Hermann Scherer and Carl Buchheister, the sculpture department through important positions by François Morellet, Karin Sander, Kiki Smith, Werner Pokorny and others. A new collection area was established with works by American artists such as Carmen Herrera, Charles Pollock and Richard Pousette-Dart. Quite a few positions were presented to a German or even European audience for the first time at the mpk.

As a special farewell gift for its director, the mpk team has been preparing the extensive Finale exhibition for more than a year. The selected works will impressively show how high-quality the art collection of the house has grown since the 1990s, especially in the area of ​​concrete art, which is an important focus. Painting and sculpture, but also more conceptual processes such as light art, can be studied in detail in the special exhibition using outstanding objects and will stimulate exciting dialogues and perhaps even raise controversial questions. It will be interesting to see how the curators interpret the 1.3 million grains of sand by Jochem Hendricks, the glowing neon tubes by François Morellet and the atmospheric, partly abstract landscapes by Walter Leistikow, Daniel Sigloch and Michael Growe. One thing is certain: for the mpk, the exhibition is by no means the final whistle, but the prelude to new perspectives.

Please note: The exhibition extends over three levels and is presented in full until February 13, 2022. Individual areas will be remodeled for the subsequent exhibitions. The works in the exhibition can be seen as follows:

Level 2 (laboratory and graphics cabinet) by February 13, 2022
Level 3 (skylight
room) by March 13, 2022 Level 0 (showrooms) by May 8, 2022

Curators: Hanna Diedrichs gen. Thormann MA, Dr. Soren Fischer,
Dr. Svenja Kriebel, Andrea Loeschnig MA, Dr. Annette Reich

https://mpk.de/sonderausstellungen/finale-directors-cut/

Galerie Roger Katwijk will be featuring the third solo exhibition of German artist Dirk Salz from February 26 to March 26, 2022.

The title ‘The World is deep’  refers to the fact that truth and reality is never traceable plain on the surface  but only in the depth like Paul Cézanne already recognized:

'Nature is not on the surface, yet in the depth. The colours are the expression of this depth on the surface. They arise from the roots of the world. They are their life, the life of ideas.‘ (Quote from Cézanne)

The works of Dirk Salz are remarkable for their transparency and reflective nature, the result of a singular blend of resins and pigments which he applies to cork and multiplex. Salz reveals himself as a master of optical illusion through these perfectly executed pieces, which he refers to paintings; in them, the foreground and background blend seamlessly together. Salz slowly builds these entirely abstract works with infinite care, layer by layer, using a diaphanous, pigmented epoxy resin and creating an immeasurable depth in the process. While the smooth resin reflects the environment in which they are placed, the eye of the viewer goes well beyond that reflection and is pulled deeply into the refined works. This fathomless depth is strongest in Salz’s darker pieces, which compellingly suggest elements partially hidden under the gleaming, reflective surface. An example is the series ‘Deep Dives,’ which makes alluring visual reference to dark, shadow-bound water basins.  In the new works Salz is showing 'deep dives‘  composed of same sized rectangles but variable in position and layering - creating new geometrical elements out of themselves and together with the reflection of the environment.  New is also a triangulated form of the picture carrier, that gives specific intended identity to the object character of the work. In his round works Salz is showing two coloured fadings.

Completely new work (within the ‘Fadings' series) - transparent digital prints on glass. In each case three panes standing in a row before the wall. The picture the viewer sees,  is a trick of the perception, because it’s not really one picture but four (an addition of the three panes and the wall behind) - and the reflections of the surroundings. The specific work is titled  ’The four elements’.

https://rogerkatwijk.com/exhibitions.php