The two walls to the right and left of the Gallery entrance are taken up by large-format tableaus composed in module-like fashion. They transform this place of administrative activity into a space of exuberant colour and experience. Here painting – or, to be more exact, panel painting – comes up against photography and drawing. Abstract, constructivist elements encounter narrative pictorial strands. Visualized memories of past journeys are conjoined with impressions gathered in the city of Karlsruhe. And in addition, through the employment of a mirror in the painting Bar, not only the interior of the office but also the beholder is included in the configuration. Welcome to the Ackermann cosmos.
On display in the exhibition stand by are seven current works, in which Franz Ackermann once again demonstrates how paint and colour can change the perception of a given space and how painting can take on a physical presence. In pursuit of this goal, the overall staging of the exhibition follows an unexpected dramaturgy: while in the front gallery room and in the library (where a book cover with all the appearance of a piece of architecture conceals the many real publications) the exhibited works take up more space than they would seem to be entitled to as users of these places, the artist has designed a quieter, yet no less space-defining arrangement for the rear, largest room.
The exhibition title, stand by, is on the one hand an allusion to the ongoing pandemic situation, in which accustomed procedures of day-to-day life have been temporarily interrupted in many places and “put on standby”. On the other hand, it refers to Franz Ackermann’s understanding of his own work as something uncompleted, forever in a process of further development. Or as he puts it: “Nothing is ever ‘finished’, never”. And, last but not least, resonating in the title is an essential aspect of the way in which Ackermann works, his modus operandi as an artist. This always involves the alert, attentive observation of a place and of the social, political, and societal processes that are underway there. For example, the work “Südlicher Bahnhof” [Southern Station] on display at the very entrance to the exhibition constitutes a visual commentary on the appropriation of urban space by the web.de building behind Karlsruhe’s main railway station.
In this as in other works created by Ackermann the analysis of an urban setting is always presented as a kind of snapshot in time, as an impression of a temporary, transient condition. Accordingly, the artist describes his work not as an ascertainment but as an assertion.
The starting-points for his paintings and spatial installations are mostly “mental maps”, small-format watercolour and gouache sheets which he has been making on his numerous journeys ever since 1991. In these, the artist records immediate impressions and feelings, which subsequently find their way into the larger works. The methods of dérive and psycho-geography employed during his urban forays are translated into the formal language of his multi-layered picture surfaces. Thus the eye of the beholder goes roaming around in the gaudily polychrome landscapes and scenery, is carried away by a narrative element, and links the latter with personal associations before it encounters at the very next corner an abstract area of colour in garish neon.
Welcome to the Ackermann cosmos.

Text: Ferial Nadja Karrasch

Translation: Richard Humphrey