Oliver Krahenbuhl at Lutz and Thalmann - Zurich - Brief Article - Critical Essay

Oliver Krahenbuhl's recent show featured 22 works in oil on canvas or on paper. In each, Krahenbuhl runs a dazzling gamut of painterly techniques: glazing, impasto, scumbling, decalcomania, fluid linear strokes and so on. His predominant activity is still that of partially wiping out passages shortly after applying them. His colors are tonally light yet seldom pastel, an effect that has been accurately described by others as "cool brightness."

The most arresting painting was a 59-by-47-inch semi-abstract canvas. Through its principal yellow ground, pairs of wavering vertical strands have been gouged. Over them sits a screen of upright, pale green stripes. Large, softly modeled viridian and plum-hued spheres create a dizzying spatial disjunction as a sphere that appears to be behind the stripes overlays another whose visible sections seem to be in front of the stripes. This interwoven yet deep space is flatly topped on the left with stencil-like, powder blue cornflower forms.

Earlier comparisons of Krahenbuhl to Per Kirkeby give way to a newer affinity with Philip Taaffe and Mark Francis. Although the works are abstract, Krahenbuhl is not afraid of images. Balls, stripes, braids, grids, flowers, even arrangements of his earlier Kopf-Gefass (head-vessel) forms reappear from time to time, usually repeated and inverted to serve as negative space in a larger structural plane. Yet the paint of each layer is handled differently and is translucent, allowing others to show through.

Krahenbuhl is a master of beautiful hesitancy, and his flickering effect is amplified by the increased number of layers and methods. He avoids the hierarchical structure of traditional composition without reverting to the simplicity of allover patterning. He is able to construct space through the juxtaposition of colors and to play with allusive reference. Layers, which are both literally and figuratively superficial, are his means to achieve depth. This is a good functional trope for a fine way to make art--and to live life--in our complicated times.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group