Essential Reduction

Whether we want it or not, we find ourselves in a time in which reduction plays a central role. But reduction not only means renunciation, rather it has power and poetry all its own. A realization that has bothered artists since the beginning of the 20th century and has led them to focus on essential questions in their artistic approaches. In modern and contemporary art, different art movements can be found at the center, which is the concept of reduction. The artists in the exhibition “Essential Reduction” also deal in their works with the wide spectrum of this concept, which leads from the reduction of the vocabulary of color and form to a social concept. Today, reduction is mostly associated with the concept of minimalism. However, the practice of the artists represented in this exhibition is to be understood in the context of a post-minimalist discourse. “Essential Reduction” combines works that suggest reduced aesthetic approaches, but go beyond the literal readability of minimalism, not only allowing levels of association back in, but actually reclaim for them. In doing so, some of the artists also raise interesting questions about the borders of art. Shown were works by the artists Felix Becker, Monika Brandmeier, Katrin Bremermann (DE), Artjom Chepovetskyy, Goekhan Erdogan, Oliver Gröne, Herbert Warmuth, India-Serena, Irene Grau, Rafael Rangel, Minh Dung Vu, Mathias Kessler, Regine Schumann and Winter/Hoerbel.