Kunstraum München, Dirk Skreber, June 23 - August 1, 1992; Kunsthalle Rostock, Dirk Skreber, July 22 - August 5, 1993
Literature
C. Tacke, ed., Dirk Skreber, Munich, 1992, p. 40 (illustrated)
Catalogue Essay
Determining the nature of so-called reality in everyday life has become a primary concern of aesthetic theory in the past decade. It is reflected in representational painting’s struggle to overcome its tangible objecthood by fabricating psychological, historical, and architectural situations and spaces. Dirk Skreber’s paintings acknowledge the futility of transcending this struggle by forcing the issue onto the surface of the painting itself. His works are characterized by a tension between the plain fact of their material construction and the various fictive scenes they represent. While a fictional narrative is often suggested by the paintings, the eventful nature of their surface thwarts any illusion of space and distance that Skreber creates. Skreber’s paintings evoke a sensation described by architectural historian Anthony Vidler as the “architectural uncanny” in their presentation of built spaces as unsettling or threatening.B. Schwabsky, Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting, London/NewYork, 2002, p. 310