Self-determined work is the logical foundation of the artist profession. In the exhibition »Unknown«, Benedikt Gahl describes the necessity of (artistic) autonomy. How can and will the Unknown still exist and become visible in the year 2025? This question of visibility contains a criticism of a cultural politics of representation. Here, the Unknown is set against the new and technically innovative, and understood as an investment into visual strategies capable of (re)forming us. What do I recognize on these canvasses, what is this Unknown? It transforms into a call to see and think differently. Dissent with the reality of our times can provide an opportunity to develop new forms.
The primary focus of Gahl’s work lies on oil painting on canvas and paper. Beyond, but not outside of the digitalized world, Gahl’s paintings follow familiar historical traditions of abstract painting and visual mass culture. They are supported by a pursuit of autonomy which goes beyond artistic self-determination and manifests in his work and engagement with concrete spaces. The artist, in collaboration with others, temporarily takes over a bar and turns it into a stage for free concerts and lectures, while the bar keeps running on a donation basis. The transformed and newly non-commercial space of the disused pub is understood »neither as a pub/Boaz’n, nor an event space, but rather as a place of encounter and exchange for different subcultures and social classes of the city.« (T.A.G., Temporäres Archiv der Gegenwart/Temporary Archive of the Present, 2015) The exhibition at Kunstraum aims to track and continue these localized strategies in Gahl’s oeuvre. »Unknown« should be understood as another attempt at realization of personal and social utopias in a continual present.
