Articles and Reviews
Freie Presse, June 28, 2019 (english version)
Matthias Zwarg
Short Stories about Time
The gallery Borssenanger shows new works by Sabine Friesicke and other artists who deal with Time. For that you have to bring a little bit of time.
Chemnitz. "Where does the universe come from, and when does it begin, did it really have a beginning, and if, what happened before, what is the time, will it ever end, can we go back in time?" This is what physicist Stephen W. Hawking (1942 - 2018) asked in his bestselling book, "A Brief History of Time." And he added: "Basically, there are only two questions which move humanity: how did it all start and how will it end?" In between, time goes by. Hawking has been looking for a scientific explanation of the phenomenon, asking questions that will almost move everyone - and if it is just the question of the beginning and end of their own time on earth.
For the current exhibition "Zeit-Sichten" in the gallery Borssenanger, gallerist Ulf Kallscheidt has invited artists who ask about their time in their own way. The starting point is new work by the artist Sabine Friesicke, born in Hamburg in 1960. She draws and paints at the second of a metronome. This results in large - format monochrome paintings that resemble colored fabrics - an excerpt from the time in which they were painted, sometimes written down to the second in the title, "42240 seconds", but usually only as "times of the day“.
Her intention becomes even clearer in the "Islands of Time": only a few lines, sometimes exactly horizontal, sometimes sloping, ascending, condensing, can be seen on found papers that have been glued together to form collages. These pieces on a white wall are like touching moments of activity or creativity in an otherwise uneventful, "white" time.
Similarly conceptually worked Hanne Darboven (1941 - 2009), which developed her own code system for the time. From the internationally known artist a relatively early monotype from the year 1976 can be seen. Equally famous is the japanese conceptual artist On Kawara (1933 - 2014). He made his restless life a work of art by referring to his work on time and place of residence. Two of his famous postcards can be seen in Chemnitz, which he sent to two people daily from 1968 to 1979 - each with the imprint "I got up at", and the exact time of getting up, as well is provided a picture of his current whereabouts. This minimalist version of a "sign of life" does not fail to have its effect at a time when this series of postcards in many places around the world can be stopped abruptly at any moment - through war, murder, starvation, death on the run. Inge Krause often refers to the immediate present in her works. She shows drawings after cover photos of the Süddeutsche Zeitung from the years 2007/2008, which she dissolves by vaguely alienating lines from their daily updated reference and gives them a blurring in the memory duration. Hanns Schimansky, born in 1949 in Bitterfeld, a long-time professor at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee, chops the flow of time into shorter and longer lines that flow in order, but also wildly. Quite similar is the approach of the Stuttgart Thomas Müller (born 1959), who in his sometimes dense, line-rich, sometimes almost empty pages plays poetically with the perception of time.
These short artistic stories of the time - apart from the works of Inge Krause - completely renounce figurative, documentary with minimalist means, but seismographically. Exactly how artists, how we humans feel time - as happily dense moments or as a frightening void. And how much this feeling depends on what we do ourselves. Or as Stephen Hawking put it: "As long as there is life, there is hope."
The exhibition "Zeit-Sichten" can be seen until July 19th in the gallery Borssenanger, Chemnitz, Straße der Nationen 2 - 4: Tuesdays to Fridays 14 to 18, Saturdays 11 to 15. www.borssenanger.de
Matthias Zwarg
Short Stories about Time
The gallery Borssenanger shows new works by Sabine Friesicke and other artists who deal with Time. For that you have to bring a little bit of time.
Chemnitz. "Where does the universe come from, and when does it begin, did it really have a beginning, and if, what happened before, what is the time, will it ever end, can we go back in time?" This is what physicist Stephen W. Hawking (1942 - 2018) asked in his bestselling book, "A Brief History of Time." And he added: "Basically, there are only two questions which move humanity: how did it all start and how will it end?" In between, time goes by. Hawking has been looking for a scientific explanation of the phenomenon, asking questions that will almost move everyone - and if it is just the question of the beginning and end of their own time on earth.
For the current exhibition "Zeit-Sichten" in the gallery Borssenanger, gallerist Ulf Kallscheidt has invited artists who ask about their time in their own way. The starting point is new work by the artist Sabine Friesicke, born in Hamburg in 1960. She draws and paints at the second of a metronome. This results in large - format monochrome paintings that resemble colored fabrics - an excerpt from the time in which they were painted, sometimes written down to the second in the title, "42240 seconds", but usually only as "times of the day“.
Her intention becomes even clearer in the "Islands of Time": only a few lines, sometimes exactly horizontal, sometimes sloping, ascending, condensing, can be seen on found papers that have been glued together to form collages. These pieces on a white wall are like touching moments of activity or creativity in an otherwise uneventful, "white" time.
Similarly conceptually worked Hanne Darboven (1941 - 2009), which developed her own code system for the time. From the internationally known artist a relatively early monotype from the year 1976 can be seen. Equally famous is the japanese conceptual artist On Kawara (1933 - 2014). He made his restless life a work of art by referring to his work on time and place of residence. Two of his famous postcards can be seen in Chemnitz, which he sent to two people daily from 1968 to 1979 - each with the imprint "I got up at", and the exact time of getting up, as well is provided a picture of his current whereabouts. This minimalist version of a "sign of life" does not fail to have its effect at a time when this series of postcards in many places around the world can be stopped abruptly at any moment - through war, murder, starvation, death on the run. Inge Krause often refers to the immediate present in her works. She shows drawings after cover photos of the Süddeutsche Zeitung from the years 2007/2008, which she dissolves by vaguely alienating lines from their daily updated reference and gives them a blurring in the memory duration. Hanns Schimansky, born in 1949 in Bitterfeld, a long-time professor at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee, chops the flow of time into shorter and longer lines that flow in order, but also wildly. Quite similar is the approach of the Stuttgart Thomas Müller (born 1959), who in his sometimes dense, line-rich, sometimes almost empty pages plays poetically with the perception of time.
These short artistic stories of the time - apart from the works of Inge Krause - completely renounce figurative, documentary with minimalist means, but seismographically. Exactly how artists, how we humans feel time - as happily dense moments or as a frightening void. And how much this feeling depends on what we do ourselves. Or as Stephen Hawking put it: "As long as there is life, there is hope."
The exhibition "Zeit-Sichten" can be seen until July 19th in the gallery Borssenanger, Chemnitz, Straße der Nationen 2 - 4: Tuesdays to Fridays 14 to 18, Saturdays 11 to 15. www.borssenanger.de
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 2011
Repeat repeat
By Edith Newhall
We see grids everywhere, every day - I'm looking through window panes at our neighbors' asphalt shingles right now - but when they're transposed to paintings and drawings, the effect can be hypnotic, even romantic.
At Gallery Joe, Sabine Friesicke's gouache paintings, made up of multiple left-to-right and top-to-bottom strokes, are so densely layered that the squares and rectangles of space left between the strokes can suggest windows, modernist houses, city blocks. They're abstract but familiar, like memories and dreams.
They are also illusionistic and more random than they appear to be at first. In Red and grey lines, for example, horizontal lines are pale gray at the top of the painting, and become progressively darker as they continue to the bottom, giving the effect of the top being closer and the bottom receding. Each of the red rectangles between the gray stripes is made up of a lighter and a darker red, suggesting brick industrial buildings seen at an angle, one wall in shadow.
Many of Friesicke's new paintings are explorations of gray and pink, using metallic gouache as gray. They're more atmospheric than her works in strong colors shown here in 2009 and more seemingly responsive to the gallery's light. They are completely abstract but nonetheless reminiscent of Georgia O'Keeffe's nocturnal views of New York's midtown skyscrapers painted from her room in the Shelton Hotel between 1926 and 1929.
Gallery Joe, 302 Arch St., noon to 5:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. 215-592-7752 or www.galleryjoe.com.
Through June 13.
Repeat repeat
By Edith Newhall
We see grids everywhere, every day - I'm looking through window panes at our neighbors' asphalt shingles right now - but when they're transposed to paintings and drawings, the effect can be hypnotic, even romantic.
At Gallery Joe, Sabine Friesicke's gouache paintings, made up of multiple left-to-right and top-to-bottom strokes, are so densely layered that the squares and rectangles of space left between the strokes can suggest windows, modernist houses, city blocks. They're abstract but familiar, like memories and dreams.
They are also illusionistic and more random than they appear to be at first. In Red and grey lines, for example, horizontal lines are pale gray at the top of the painting, and become progressively darker as they continue to the bottom, giving the effect of the top being closer and the bottom receding. Each of the red rectangles between the gray stripes is made up of a lighter and a darker red, suggesting brick industrial buildings seen at an angle, one wall in shadow.
Many of Friesicke's new paintings are explorations of gray and pink, using metallic gouache as gray. They're more atmospheric than her works in strong colors shown here in 2009 and more seemingly responsive to the gallery's light. They are completely abstract but nonetheless reminiscent of Georgia O'Keeffe's nocturnal views of New York's midtown skyscrapers painted from her room in the Shelton Hotel between 1926 and 1929.
Gallery Joe, 302 Arch St., noon to 5:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. 215-592-7752 or www.galleryjoe.com.
Through June 13.
Philadelphia City Paper, 2009
Gold
by Lori Hill
Like William Penn designing the early streets of Philadelphia, Sabine Friesicke
works from a grid. Methodically pulling her brush from left to right and top to bottom.
Friesicke creates layers upon layers with the treasure on the end- a rich, shimmery glint of gold beaming from below.
Friesicke’s show at Gallery Joe, “Gold”, works from the premise that with patterning and artistic devotion, small wonders will emerge.
Born in Germany, Friesicke, who studied at the Liberal Academy of Arts in Hamburg and now works out of NYC, immerses her gridwork in scarlet reds and royal blues and the blackest of black. It’s nice to see the artist explore the effects of color on her unique painterly technique. Earlier works leaned more to the monochromatic- whites,beiges, ochres.
How the colors play with the gold base changes depending on the shade, the light and the perspective of the viewer, yet it’s always deeply engaging.
In some works, the effect is one of flickering lights, like the windows on a moonlit skyscraper or an aerial glimpse of a city at night.
Friesicke makes her patterns anything but repetitious.
Gold
by Lori Hill
Like William Penn designing the early streets of Philadelphia, Sabine Friesicke
works from a grid. Methodically pulling her brush from left to right and top to bottom.
Friesicke creates layers upon layers with the treasure on the end- a rich, shimmery glint of gold beaming from below.
Friesicke’s show at Gallery Joe, “Gold”, works from the premise that with patterning and artistic devotion, small wonders will emerge.
Born in Germany, Friesicke, who studied at the Liberal Academy of Arts in Hamburg and now works out of NYC, immerses her gridwork in scarlet reds and royal blues and the blackest of black. It’s nice to see the artist explore the effects of color on her unique painterly technique. Earlier works leaned more to the monochromatic- whites,beiges, ochres.
How the colors play with the gold base changes depending on the shade, the light and the perspective of the viewer, yet it’s always deeply engaging.
In some works, the effect is one of flickering lights, like the windows on a moonlit skyscraper or an aerial glimpse of a city at night.
Friesicke makes her patterns anything but repetitious.
ART IN AMERICA, 2004
Light in the Basement
by Michael Amy
"Light in the Basement," Sabine Friesicke's exhibition at Robert Steele Gallery, included 11 square paintings in acrylic on canvas, 64 by 64 inches each, and three small acrylic drawings on paper (all works except one 2003). These abstract compositions are part of an ongoing series she has been working on for years.
Friesicke's method of production is straightforward. She first paints the ground of her picture in one color. Next, she draws horizontal bands freehand across the entire width of the picture in a different color.
Finally, she allows a more liquid acrylic of the same color as the bands to run at narrow intervals down the height of the canvas, thereby creating irregular streaks that do not always reach the bottom of the picture. The somewhat dense edges of these streaks frame lightly transparent spines at their centers.
Part of the appeal of these paintings lies in the minute variations between the hand-drawn bands and free-running streaks.The tonal contrasts that arise when a streak crosses over a band cause the grid to flicker. The lines frame small irregular rectangles in the ground color; this difference in hue increases the subtle glow and pulse of the picture.
Friesicke is interested in repetition and consequently in seriality. Her studio is a laboratory in which she experiments with various color combinations, degrees of liquidness, and/or tighter or looser intervals between wider or narrower bands and streaks.
Light in the Basement
by Michael Amy
"Light in the Basement," Sabine Friesicke's exhibition at Robert Steele Gallery, included 11 square paintings in acrylic on canvas, 64 by 64 inches each, and three small acrylic drawings on paper (all works except one 2003). These abstract compositions are part of an ongoing series she has been working on for years.
Friesicke's method of production is straightforward. She first paints the ground of her picture in one color. Next, she draws horizontal bands freehand across the entire width of the picture in a different color.
Finally, she allows a more liquid acrylic of the same color as the bands to run at narrow intervals down the height of the canvas, thereby creating irregular streaks that do not always reach the bottom of the picture. The somewhat dense edges of these streaks frame lightly transparent spines at their centers.
Part of the appeal of these paintings lies in the minute variations between the hand-drawn bands and free-running streaks.The tonal contrasts that arise when a streak crosses over a band cause the grid to flicker. The lines frame small irregular rectangles in the ground color; this difference in hue increases the subtle glow and pulse of the picture.
Friesicke is interested in repetition and consequently in seriality. Her studio is a laboratory in which she experiments with various color combinations, degrees of liquidness, and/or tighter or looser intervals between wider or narrower bands and streaks.
