Boozy Wurlitzer (Lernplanet)
A two person show with Michael Bauer and Stefanie Popp
May 13 – June 18, 2022
Opening, Friday May 13 from 6-8 pm
Artists talk Saturday May 14 from 4-5 pm
Boozy Wurlitzer (Lernplanet) is a two person show by Michael Bauer and Stefanie Popp who’ve known each other’s work since their days at Hochschule fur Bildende Kunst in Braunschweig and this is their first joint exhibition in the United States. The title is a combination stemming from the series of paintings shown by each artist respectively. The work imbues a strange familiarity and seems recognizable, yet is a world filled with ambiguity.
Michael Bauer (b. 1973) is a German painter who lives and works in NYC, and whose amorphic, animalistic forms are built upon color washes, meandering lines, and bulbous protrusions. Utilizing a variety of rendering techniques and materials in high-chroma colors, the free-form compositions become luscious abstract landscapes. He borrows from the colorful tradition of Modernist composition, rooted in the fundamentals of the Expressionist. Stefanie Popp wrote about his work in 2021 and stated "Might be a bad trip at times but someone is definitely holding our hand, helping us face both friendly fellas and the ever transforming orcs and ogres, guiding us from cave to cave and garden to garden, gentle sanctuaries where we can rest and restore, before we step into the next world within worlds, moonstruck, to find our proximate opponent, or dancing partner, or some half-creature that’ll accompany us for a few steps, as we set our eyes on the radiating path that meanders through it all, knowing it’s going to be fine."
Michael Bauer has exhibited extensively through Europe and the US, he is represented by Norma Mangione Gallery and Nino Mier Gallery. Bauer is the subject of a substantial JRP Ringier monogram published in 2008, entitled Borwasser, and with a lead essay by Jennifer Higgie and an interview with Stefanie Popp. Bauer’s work can be found in Deutsche Bank AG, London, UK Dallas Cowboys Collection, Texas, US Kunstsaele Berlin, Berlin, DE Neufert Stiftung mit Sitz in Weimar, Cologne, DE Saatchi Collection, London, UK Sammlung Boros, Berlin, DE Sammlung Südhausbau, Munich, DE Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK
Stefanie Popp’s (1974) work opens the viewer to an oddly familiar narrative that can’t be completely explained, yet is fully understood. The world we enter has its roots in the shamanistic realm, the occult, yogi transcendence, and our shared subconscious. The paintings are executed on raw Belgian linen which give a tan undertone that is built up with graphite and earth tone colors. We will also be showing two of her recent concrete sculptured gnomes, that act like guardians to this new realm.
Popp is a German native living and working in Cologne, has extensively exhibited throughout Europe with four monograms and a series of group catalogues. Her work has been exhibited at Galerie Norbert Arns, Cologne; Keijsers Koning, Dallas; Norma Mangione Gallery, Turin; Galerie Susanne Zander, Cologne; PiK, Cologne; Marquise Dance Hall, Istanbul; Exile Gallery, Berlin; Fundacion Proa, Buenos Aires; Kunsthalle Recklinghausen; Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Lissone; Zerofold, Cologne; Montgomery, Berlin and Brotherslasher, Cologne.
For additional information or images please contact the gallery at info@keijserskoning.com or call us at 469-961-5391
