SEHN-SUCHT
Malerei /Painting
7. September – 19. Oktober 2019/September 7 – October 19, 2019
Vernissage: Freitag, 6. September 2019, 19-21 Uhr/Opening: Friday, September 6, 2019, 7-9 pm

Said Baalbaki, Sisyphos/Kohle II (Detail), 2019, Öl auf Leinwand/oil on canvas, 27 x 21 cm

In our 3rd exhibition with the German-Lebanese, Said Baalbaki, the artist returns completely to painting. Baalbaki, who has realized large-scale conceptual research projects in addition to his painterly oeuvre, has devoted the last five years to his “Jussuf Abbo Project”, the reconstruction of the life and work of the Palestinian-Jewish sculptor who lived in Berlin in the 1920s. Now, if one takes the etymology of the Middle High German word “sensuht” as a basis, he felt a “painful desire” to become creatively active again with oil paint and canvas. In his studio he came across, among other things, an old charcoal painting; he now takes up this motif again and places it in new painterly contexts.

All pictorial themes are based on the most diverse web of relationships: art historical, political and personal. In “Sisyphos”, the figure carries black coal on her back. Baalbaki connects here one of his first perceptions after his arrival in Berlin, the smell of coal, with the childhood memory of construction workers who carried their material in this way. Universal is the question of the meaning and meaninglessness of everyday life, but also of artistic creation. If one follows the interpretation of Camus’ Sisyphos myth, the painter is a happy man who recognizes his freedom in accepting the daily struggle and not his punishment. Inspired by the copper engraving “The Beekeepers” by Pieter Bruegel (the Elder), Baalbaki is interested on the one hand in the form, colour and feel of the beehive, which reminds him of the mud houses of his homeland, and on the other the critical aspects he draws from this figure. For Baalbaki, both the beekeeper and the bee colony are metaphors with which he questions the social and historical structures of both his homeland and his home of choice. But with all the social-critical allusions inherent in his painting, the actual goal is to paint a good picture. To this end, the artist, as a self-determined Sisyphus, sets out again every day in the studio, driven by a yearning that ultimately cannot be satisfied.

Born 1974 in Beirut, lives and works in Berlin; 1994-1998 studies at the Institut des Beaux-Arts Beirut; 2000-2001 at the Khalid Shoman Foundation, Darat al Funun in Amman with Marwan (Summer Academy); 2002-2005 at University of Arts (UdK) Berlin; 2006-2008 studies at UdK, Institute of Art in the Context. Collections et al.: Kunstsammlung Deutscher Bundestag, Berlin; Sammlung Till Richter Museum, Buggenhagen, Germany; British Museum, London; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; Collection Solidere, Sursock Museum and Saradar Collection, Beirut.