From 13 October 2023, the Samurai Museum Berlin, in cooperation with the Berlin gallery Bermel von Luxburg, will present the solo exhibition of the German abstract artist Lothar Quinte (1923-2000). Parallel to the current exhibition A Retrospective – A Century of Lothar Quinte at Galerie Bermel von Luxburg (Fasanenstr. 29, Berlin-Charlottenburg), which commemorates Quinte’s 100th birthday, the Samurai Museum in Berlin-Mitte will show selected works in dialogue with Japanese culture.
Image above: by courtesy of Galerie Bermel von Luxburg + Samurai Museum Berlin
The fact that minimalism permeates the aesthetic principles of Japanese art led to the conviction that an artist like the internationally acclaimed Lothar Quinte, who dedicated his work to reduction from 1960 to 2000, would be an ideal artistic personality for the Samurai Museum Berlin.
In the course of his life, 108 solo exhibitions were organised for Lothar Quinte. In 1994, a television film by Rudi Bergmann was released. In 1995, he was appointed Professor h. c. of the State of Baden-Württemberg, and in 1997 he was awarded the Lovis Corinth Prize. In 2000, as his last work, he created the windows for the chapel in Champenay (Alsace/France).
In view of the world’s largest samurai art collection, the gallery filtered out works from Lothar Quinte’s oeuvre that are dedicated to the principle of division: Vis-à-vis or also Spiegelbilder is the name of a phase in Lothar Quinte’s late work. As late as the 1980s, he often divided the picture surface into two parts that refer to each other.
There is much to discover about symmetry and asymmetry in Japanese philosophy, which relates this aesthetic to the laws of “calm and vitality” or of “awakened balance”. Both can be felt in the works of Lothar Quinte as a kind of constantly moving balance. In the history of the samurais, this alert concentration has always played an important role.
Thus, this special exhibition builds a bridge to the present and allows the influence of Japanese tradition to flow into the present.
The exhibition is co-curated by Sibylle Wagner-Quinte (artist and widow of Lothar Quinte) and Galerie Bermel von Luxburg.
WHERE?
Samurai Museum Berlin
Auguststraße 68
10117 Berlin-Mitte
WHEN?
Opening:
Friday, 13.10.2023, 18 bis 21 Uhr
Laudatory speech Dr. Susanne Rockweiler
Exhibition period:
Friday, 13.10.2023 until Thursday, 11.02.2024
open daily from 11 am to 7 pm
