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Cornelius Völker
17 October - 5 December 2015
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Cornelius Völker

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Overview
Cornelius Völker

In his first solo exhibition on the West Coast, German artist Cornelius Völker, painting with extraordinary prowess and sensuality as well as uncanny awareness and insight, chooses traditional genres — the still life and portrait — to explore and decode the history of representational painting.

 

Frequently choosing subject matter that was used by painters for centuries to best exhibit their proficiency — hair, hands, flesh, glass, food — Völker’s works blur traditional distinctions between genres, each painting becoming both a still life and a portrait. Isolated in a painterly void, a stack of books reads as a standing figure while art catalogues left open, pages bristling with post-it bookmarks, recline like Titian’s Venus of Urbino. The back of a woman’s head, with an elaborate coiffure, is a coil of rope or a golden loaf of twisted bread.

 

Whether or not actually figurative, nearly every work that Völker paints refers to the body:  pills to ingest, ointments to rub into the skin, viscous fluids, cigarette stubs or half eaten fruit. A plate of oysters, in its similarity to female genitalia, points both to the origin of their alleged power as aphrodisiacs and to Dutch painters’ use of food and flowers to refer to the brevity of human life. The stub end of a candle reminds us of Macbeth‘s soliloquy and that life’s ultimate conclusion is entropy and death.

 

This survey of work from the last fifteen years reveals a consummate painter and smart artist who masterfully plays on such diverse historical precedents as the tradition of 17th century Dutch still life painting, Giorgio Morandi, Wayne Thiebaud, Richard Avedon, Gerhard Richter, Fredrick Sommer, Édouard Manet and Ed Ruscha. Painting, though declared dead in 1839 by Paul Delaroche and frequently reasserted ever since, continues to attract and enchant us perhaps like no other medium. In the hands of an artist as knowledgeable and skilled as Völker, it’s easy to see why.

 

Cornelius Völker was born in Kronach, Germany in 1965 and studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He is a professor of painting at the Kunstakademie Münster. His work has been the subject of many solo museum shows throughout Germany and Europe. This exhibition is his first solo show on the west coast of the United States.

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Works
  • Cornelius Völker Lips, 2011 oil on canvas 59 1/8 x 78 3/4 inches 150 x 200 cm
    Cornelius Völker
    Lips, 2011
    oil on canvas
    59 1/8 x 78 3/4 inches
    150 x 200 cm
  • Cornelius Völker Spalt, 2015 oil on canvas 47 1/4 x 63 inches 120 x 160 cm
    Cornelius Völker
    Spalt, 2015
    oil on canvas
    47 1/4 x 63 inches
    120 x 160 cm
  • Cornelius Völker Bronchoforton, 2015 oil on canvas 47 1/4 x 59 1/8 inches 120 x 150 cm
    Cornelius Völker
    Bronchoforton, 2015
    oil on canvas
    47 1/4 x 59 1/8 inches
    120 x 150 cm
  • Cornelius Völker Flowers, 2014 oil on canvas 70 7/8 x 118 1/8 inches 180 x 300 cm
    Cornelius Völker
    Flowers, 2014
    oil on canvas
    70 7/8 x 118 1/8 inches
    180 x 300 cm
  • Cornelius Völker Candle, 2014 oil on canvas 17 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches 45 x 50 cm
    Cornelius Völker
    Candle, 2014
    oil on canvas
    17 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches
    45 x 50 cm
  • Cornelius Völker Puddle [c], 2012 oil on canvas 43 1/4 x 29 1/2 inches 110 x 75 cm
    Cornelius Völker
    Puddle [c], 2012
    oil on canvas
    43 1/4 x 29 1/2 inches
    110 x 75 cm
  • Cornelius Völker Pullover, 2000 oil on canvas 86 5/8 x 59 1/8 inches 220 x 150 cm
    Cornelius Völker
    Pullover, 2000
    oil on canvas
    86 5/8 x 59 1/8 inches
    220 x 150 cm
  • Cornelius Völker Cigarettes [c], 2001 pencil and watercolor on paper 11 1/8 x 15 inches 15 x 19 inches framed 28.4 x 38 cm
    Cornelius Völker
    Cigarettes [c], 2001
    pencil and watercolor on paper
    11 1/8 x 15 inches
    15 x 19 inches framed
    28.4 x 38 cm
  • Cornelius Völker Apple [c], 2002 oil on canvas 11 3/4 x 15 3/4 inches 30 x 40 cm
    Cornelius Völker
    Apple [c], 2002
    oil on canvas
    11 3/4 x 15 3/4 inches
    30 x 40 cm
Installation Views
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Press
  • man in blue jeans and white tank top pulling off orange sweater over head.

    Cornelius Völker

    Cherie Louise Turner, Visual Art Source, October 31, 2015
  • clothes strewn out on beige floor

    Corenlius Völker: New Paintings

    Kimberly Chun, SF Gate, October 13, 2015

Related artist

  • Cornelius Völker

    Cornelius Völker

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