Discover Top Posts Tagged with #david ostrowski

David Ostrowski

The Grid Method II (Parliament Paintings), 2024 Acrylic, lacquer and cotton on canvas, 200 x 150 cm

David Ostrowski (*1981) is a minimalist at heart: his nearly empty canvases challenge both the spectator and the history of painting itself, leaving the former in a limbo between joke and earnestness. That Ostrowski’s paintings are far from being a joke but indeed possess a fascinating ambiguity demonstrates his current exhibition at Kunstverein Heilbronn: „The Critic“, running through August 23, borrows its title from the eponymous cartoon series that Ostrowski loved to watch while visiting his American grandma.

„The Critic“ also is the title of his most recent series of paintings (Ostrowski always works in series) and, as the artist explains, deals with self-referential criticism and not with an outside (art) critic as one might be tempted to imply in view of the cartoon series’ protagonist, a New York film critic. Ostrowski takes cues and sequences from the cartoon, reinterprets them and in so doing subtly comments on the constitution of the present-day as well as his own being as an artist. Buzz words like „The War“ point to the omnipresent conflicts in the world while „Our next Attraction“ is turned into „Our next Abstraction“ and thus humorously comments on the art world’s fleeting, and repeating, trends.

In contrast to the more figurative „The Critic“ series, the „F“ series largely consists of seemingly empty canvases. Only upon closer inspection do they reveal painterly processes and traces from Ostrowski’s studio: footprints, dust and layered paint reflect his work process as well as his surroundings. At this point Pollock’s drip paintings, showing imprints of coffee mugs and cigarettes, come to mind and once again illustrate Ostrowski’s anchoring in the history of painting.

The accompanying catalogue has been published by Snoeck and starts off with a text by Hans-Christian Dany who, especially with regards to „The Critic“, elaborates on Ostrowski’s integration of the critical resonator into his art and ho this relates to the „The Critic“ cartoon. In addition, the catalogue also contains beautiful reproductions his paintings and their details, a wonderful feature that makes the catalogue even more enjoyable!

#david ostrowski #contemporary art #art book #german artist