Julius Heinemann at Jahn und Jahn

Artist: Julius Heinemann

Exhibition title: Double Exposure

Venue: Jahn und Jahn, Munich, Germany

Date: October 26 – December 8, 2018

Photography: ©Ulrich Gebert/ all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Jahn und Jahn, Munich

Subtle traces encounter powerful streaks of color on a white surface. Peering through semi-transparent gauze, which organically traverses the gallery space and creates a new spatial structure, alters the perception of what is depicted. Julius Heinemann does not limit himself to the classical painting format but instead understands the entire exhibition space as a place of experiencing, which can be opened up through painting. As such, each work is generated individually in the head – fragments intertwine with subjective experience in the here and now.

Heinemann’s painting, which is closely linked to the visual experiences of everyday life, is process-based and occurs intuitively. It revolves around the unconscious and subconscious, the ephemeral and unstable; it is both observation and expression in one. The painting process is fundamentally open and investigative. As in concrete poetry, painting itself becomes the purpose and object of investigation – painting presents itself. Alongside color, shape and materiality, the spatial dimension proves to be an important parameter in the physical experience of the work. Heinemann sees his tableaus as fragments of wall and – with their empty white areas – simultaneously as a reference to the White Cube. They are bearers of images and also serve as structural elements that always defne themselves in relation to the current environment and lighting conditions. Through spatial interventions Heinemann transfers painting from an image into the room, blurring boundaries between the imaginary and the real, the abstract and concrete. Lastly, the title Double Exposure alludes to the many layers and modalities of perspective that exist in his work.

Julius Heinemann (born 1984 in Munich, lives and works in Berlin) studied photography at the Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen, and at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB) before he began working intensively with sculpture at the Royal College of Art in London. After various artist residencies, among others in São Paulo, he received a scholarship to the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht from 2017 to 2018. Heinemann has not only exhibited his work throughout Germany but also internationally in cities such as London, Bogotá, Mexico City and Antwerp.