Hanns Schimansky — Jusqu’au bout du jardin… — Jeanne Bucher Jaeger | Paris, Marais Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: September 20 → November 15, 2014

jusqu’au bout du jardin

The Gallery is pleased to present new works by the artist Hanns Schimansky with a solo show entitled jusqu’au bout du jardin …(to the end of the garden…) that will take place in our Marais space from September 20 to November 15, 2014. Hanns Schimansky is acknowledged by his peers as one of the most talented draughstman of his generation in Germany. His work has integrated important collections, both public and private — and his reputation is spreading internationally. This new exhibition will present his recent drawings. It will include the series entitled ‘micro-canonic orchestra’ shown at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin in a room dedicated to John Cage as well as in the beautiful exhibition which was dedicated to the artist this Spring in Dresden, Germany. Along with these drawings, the gallery will present inks on paper and a series of foldings by the artist with vivid tones and variable rhythms. Their spatial and infinite possibilities reveal an immense expressive freedom. The space and the tension between the color and the line create a sensory experience driven by the subtle shades of the foldings.

With abstract and complex drawings, Hanns Schimansky explores the world in a very personal way. When he draws, the artist observes, touches, feels, deepens, breathes, liberates … He explores the aesthetical potential of drawing in all its forms of expression. The drawings seek to explore the conditions of our perception and reflect our existence. Contrary to video or photography, drawing demands a stronger visual focus — in total opposition to our world filled with technology. With this medium, Schimansky intends to slow down the breathtaking speed of our media-centred world. Each of his drawings demand to be examined carefully so that we can perceive the immensity of what lies within the humble story that unfolds.

Schimansky is a poet — continuously creating new linguistic and rythmic possibilities. Drawing with Schimansky is neither a manual exercise nor a preliminary study subject to painting. On the contrary, his drawings result from a long process of observation of his environment — and is also the result of a necessary inner silence.

Line

The line is very important in his non figurative drawings. Spontaneous and free, it grows slowly but with strength. It is not only a line traced on paper, but a line experienced and felt. It enters from the edge of the paper whether with a brush, a pencil, a feather or a chalk. Trembling, it searches a path, oscillates between undulations and curves. The pencil rolls, wrings, marks off or drifts on the sheet of paper. Always pushing back further the limits of his drawing, the Nature which is expressed here is not an allegory but is mainly environmental as Schimansky collects from his environment visual occurences which nurture the reflexions he develops later on paper. This adventure of the landscape leads Schimansky towards a vegetal but also an urban journey. His explorative line is perpetually growing like a rhizome, working its way through earth, evoking physical as well as mental landscapes where nature seems in full bloom. One can also detect the buzz of a city with its crossroads, poles and electric wires, signs and railroads that cross each other or networks that come together. The landscapes thus created are full of life and imprinted with great freedom. The line animating them releases a crystalline force that stems from an inner journey.

Foldings

The tridimensional impression is reinforced by foldings of the paper — chosen with great care. Schimansky prepares and shapes these vast sheets in an infinite framework of recto/verso foldings. These horizontal and vertical frameworks create multiple interstices and hidden space where colour amplifies the graphic energy of a drip or a stain. The line that emerges from the folded, unfolded and square-patterned paper and the pencil-line extend beyond the sheet of paper in a tridimensionality. Sinuous lines and curves drawn by the artist result in an aesthetic based on principles of unevenness and movement. Foldings suggest the infinity of matter and the inflexions of the mind. They are the visible expressions of the folds of soul and spirit. The vivid colors spreading from the fold itself or from the wide tinted surface form an echo, resonating with nuances : shades of sounds and tints, shades of folds, shades of maze-like frameworks and variations which call as much to the ear as to the eye.

Breath/Energy

With delicacy and clarity, the artist creates a field where the energy connecting the forms drawn can expand.

Either tinted with an intense black or invigorated by a combined vivacious red and orange, a dazzling yellow or a profound blue or green, these forms transform the paper sheet into a tridimensional space. Being diverse — round, broken, sharp or square-patterned with variable dimensions, these forms fill the surface of the sheet and give a real sense of space and depth. Hanns Schimansky invites the viewer to wander and explore the space of this sheet in a meditation where the ink seems to beat a rhythm similar to that of the heartbeat. Like Asian calligraphies calling for a unique Breath, Schimansky’s drawings seem moved by subtle movements of air such as poetic odes to _pneuma_ — in the noble sense of the greek term.

Music

In this respect, the melodic and rythmic drawn partitions are similar to those of free jazz, so much loved by Hanns Schimansky. His drawings express the absolute freedom, characteristic of free jazz, and yet they respond to very precise codes in an absolute mastery of breath, whether drawn or played. The harmony springs out of the luxuriant imagination of the artist. But they are the result of a meticulous and controlled technique. The variations of the line incarnate the variations of a sound: high-pitched then deep, resounding or deaf, with its pauses and replays, just like an improvisation cadenced by accents and punctuations.

The oeuvre of Hanns Schimansky is composed as much of sonorities as it is of silences: the rustles of the paper folded and unfolded, the ink-pen scratching the paper, the dot repeated forever with precision, the line sliding in variable rythms are all sounds which contribute to the harmony of the artist’s drawings. They are Carpe Diem filled with a subtle atmosphere and express the intensity as much as the fragility of our existence.