Raumstilleben

In the early 1960s, Ed Kiënder (1925-1996) began making circular incisions in monochrome canvases. In doing so, he drew on the work of Lucio Fontana, who inspired an entire generation of artists with his cut canvases. However, unlike to Fontana's spontaneously executed cuts, Kiënder's paintings are planned, geometric constructions. In this »Raumstillleben« [Spatial Still Life] from 1965, Kiënder is no longer only concerned with revealing the material basis of painting - stretcher frame and canvas. He now also integrates photography, today's most important medium for representing reality. It is now almost impossible for the viewer to tell which part of the painting is reality and which is merely a representation. Kiënder thus also refers to the fundamental transformation of our visual worlds that began with the invention of photography in the mid-19th century.