| Stefan
Kürten’s work is informed by archetypes of suburbia.
Houses
with tamed gardens, concrete patios, old metal swing sets and
withering potted plants represent our vain search for the
Euro/American dream of ‘the good life’.
These ‘dream homes’ express an architectural attempt
to portray
wealth and style, with a 1950s/60s touch of postwar German
architecture. While they appear safe and cozy, they also embody
the dusty and suffocating moral values of a conservative world,
and an attempt to protect this world within their walls, fences,
and iron gates.
Certain paintings depict ‘holes’ in the suburban idyll,
exposing its
underlying artifice, or eating away at it like an infectious disease.
Wallpaper patterns fill the holes like decoration, while seeming
misplaced and eerie. These patterned spaces, both beautiful and
dangerous, are a reminder of the ideal lifestyle we constantly try
to create, while disrupting it at the same time, leaving us with
a
sickly sweet aftertaste and an uncomfortable feeling of entanglement.
Stefan Kürten was born and continues to live in Düsseldorf,
Germany. He was included in the recent series of exhibitions,
The Triumph of Painting,
at London’s Saatchi Gallery. His work is
in the collections of a number of museums including the Museum
of Modern Art, NY and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Inside Out, a 64-page, hardbound
book published by Artspace
Books, with 11 color reproductions and an essay by Rebecca Solnit,
accompanies the exhibition and is available for $20.
This exhibition is sponsored in part by Goethe-Institut San Francisco.
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