GALERIE DROSTE X JAN KATH
VENLOER STR. 16,
50672 COLOGNE
Raphael Brunk and Jan Kath are united by their approach of completely rethinking an old medium. They do not allow themselves to be restricted by what is already there, but use precisely this to revolutionise the way one deals with the medium.
The exhibition INSERT COIN is the result of a cooperation between the artist Raphael Brunk and Jan Kath, one of the most important carpet designers of our time. Thus, the starting point as well as the end point of the creative collaboration is exhibited in a unique presentation that makes the creative process of the two artists and the depth of the creative sequence tangible.
Brunk works in the field of digital photography. Always starting from this, he leaves part of the creative process to the computer. Algorithms become a kind of digital brush to him. The works that form the basis of the cooperation come from a series of works based on screenshots from arcade games. This distinctive aesthetic is further developed by Raphael Brunk, drawn softer and, precisely because of this, formulated all the more concisely.
For the motifs on which the carpets are based, the artist has superimposed and juxtaposed several of the works. Through this superposition, the individual work disappears. Instead of the individual image, a new, separate motif emerges in which all the levels of the series are united, thus crystallising its essence.
Starting from these digital works, Jan Kath takes the motif and translates it into the medium of carpet. Each one is made by hand over a period of four to five months and consists of pure, hand-combed Tibetan highland wool and Chinese silk. The feel and texture of these carpets allow him to further emphasise the colour fields and give them a unique depth. In this way, every pixel of the digital file can be found again in the knots of the works. Analogue and digital merge, as it were, in the works exhibited here.
Raphael Brunk, (*1987, DE) lives and works in Frankfurt, Germany. He completed his studies at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf as a master student in the class of Andreas Gursky.
