Minimalism and After
February 2002
New acquisitions
Douwe Jan Bakker
Greg Bogin
Andre Cadere
Martin Gerwers
John Nixon
Jan van der Ploeg
Eckhard Schene
Gerold Miller
b. 1961 in Altshausen/Dhard:edged 29
2001; Aluminium, paint, 260 x 285 x 10 cm, signed on the backGerold Miller devotes himself to the question of pictorial quality in the border areas of sculpture, three-dimensional objects, limited wall areas and sculpturally and pictorially defined space as supports.
Hard:edged is an adaptation of the minimalist term "hard edge" painting, as produced by artists like Ellsworth Kelly, who sought extreme formal economy, perfect application of paint and full luminosity of colour in their paintings.
Miller's works derive from a use of form and colour that cannot be reduced any further. They make no reference: they do not allude to anything, nor do they trigger associations. And yet they explicitly address questions of pictorial quality. They meet these criteria in a conceptual sense that sees the idea as the work. Apart from the 'general conditions', the viewers do not receive anything tangible from the artist that can help them to find an image.
The hard:edged works perform another function for Miller. They mark form to the same extent as they exclude it. They define an isolated centre and establish their own spatial and temporal territory in their visual diversity. They focus on open spaces of the kind that are still frequently to be seen in Berlin: derelict land that is neither ordered, structured nor 'cultivated', but placed within a real and living urban situation. Hard:edged places caesuras by identifying cultural spaces that are open or empty in terms of civilization, and then flagging them as visual and intellectual spaces in which projections are possible, without actually having to be realized.
Guided tours on Wednesdays, 6 p.m., groups book by telephone