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"Open door," by Robert Gloeckner,

Eastern Screech-Owl, (Megascops asio). Clearwater, Florida, US

Comedy Bird Photo. Silver award winner 2024;

#art #nature #photography #wildlife #open door #robert gloeckner #owl #screech-owl #florida #nesting #cavity #surreal #hiden #comedybirdphoto #clearwater

“Open Door”

This image shows an Eastern Screech-Owl as it leans out of a ‘window’ of its home. These tiny owls are common in Florida’s densely populated areas.

Robert Gloeckner

Bird Photographer of the Year Competition

#robert gloeckner #photographer #bird photographer of the year competition #open door #eastern screech owl #owl #bird #nature #animal #florida

Open Studios at the Academy of Fine Arts (HGB) Leipzig

About a year into my Visual Arts BA-program in Braunschweig, I heard the words “Leipzig School” for the first time. This was around 2000/2001. At first, it appeared like a rumor - something people would say to point out how artists from the “East” were trying to build a reputation of their own. And by saying so, these “West-German” artists were dismissing a long tradition of Leipzig artists and craftsman that long predated the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

As a Polish-German artist, I had my own share of questionable encounters during this time of transition in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It all culminated in a statement the partner of one of my art professors made: “After all, the Poles do not have an architecture of their own”, meaning that Poland had thankfully “received” architecture from the Germans. When the term “Leipzig School” (or “New Leipzig School”) emerged around that time, it was rejected by many of the Leipzig artists. But its rejection did not dissuade art dealers and artists in the West (and beyond) from using the term to label this exotic, desirable commodity emerging in the East. And the majority of my peers and teachers in Braunschweig did not use the term in a laudable, but in a discriminatory way that proposed an artificial divide between the advanced art of the “West” and the craft-centered, regressive art of the “East”.

Installation shot of Christoph Ruckhäberle’s painting class at the Open Studios

Fast-forward to 2018: The “Leipzig School” no longer needs anybody’s approval or judgement. It has moved passed its outdated label and its definition as a painting-only school. The Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst) is not only well and alive, but it has also been able to outgrow its earlier reputation by simultaneously holding on to its mission to support local artists without compromising its global reach and relevance.

Painting in Ruckhäberle’s class (by Ines Muff)

Painting in Ruckhäberle’s class (by Jooris Klettnig)

Drawing in Ruckhäberle’s class (by Jennifer König)

Painting is still highly visible, but be prepared to be disappointed if you are looking for works that are Neo Rauch or Tim Eitel knock-offs. Many of the painters at the Open Studios have a vision of their own and demonstrate a level of experimentation which rivals their peers’ painting styles in Berlin or New York City. Even though Berlin galleries exhibit work by local artists, the scene there is awash with established international and particularly North American artists (and many of those have ties to NYC). When I refer to the painting “schools” or styles of New York City, a set of artists comes to mind that have had a striking impact on young, emerging New York painters: the figurative work of Nicole Eisenman and Dana Schutz, the whimsical, airbrushed canvases by Austin Lee, more recently the expressive inventions of Katherine Bradford, Amy Sillman’s abstractions, Alice Neel’s portraiture - to just name a few. And for some reason, which might have to do with a long-lasting American love affair with everything European, early twentieth century Expressionism and Modernism is referenced by a significant portion of contemporary NYC and East Coast painters. I yet have to find a similar tendency in contemporary German painting where the ghosts of Vuillard, Matisse, Bonnard, Munch, Morandi, Beckmann and so forth, are evoked with the same fervor.

Any attempt to narrow down a rich and diverse art scene like the one in NYC to one dominant “school” or style is doomed to fail and I lay no claim to a unified style of NYC painting. As the exception proves the rule, NYC has a myriad of artistic exceptions. But many remain underrepresented and their voices are drowned out by the relatively small amount of artists at the top. Seeing the works by young artists at the Leipzig Open Studios was a breath of fresh air - in particular their resistance towards the styles of big-name artists in Leipzig and across Germany’s contemporary art scene. The range from painting, drawing, photography to installation, video and performance was largely of high quality, playful, humorous, critical, inventive, reflective, imaginative, political, high and low brow and everything in between.

Installation shots of Tobia König’s Risograph prints (Das schöne Geschlecht, 2017)

One of my favorite installations and works were Tobia König’s Risograph prints. They consist of male nudes either engaging in auto-erotic play (the best one, which was hard to photograph, featured a figure sucking its own penis in front of a sun-set lit seascape) or while interacting with animals. From a distance, König’s prints could pass as a variation of Matisse’s paper cuts (I am also drawing this parallel to contradict myself on the relation between contemporary American painters and European Modernism). But from up close, they delight and amuse equally while displaying an array of scenes that range from tender animal-human intimacy to sexually motivated play and self-absorbed, self-sucking gymnastics. And like a sweet cherry on top of a frothy drink sits Tobia König’s title: “Das schöne Geschlecht” - The beautiful gender.

The following images were taken during the Open Studios in both graduate and undergraduate classes. In many cases, the names of the artists were not provided which explains why most of the images below are not labeled. One last observation that I would like to add was the prevalence of drawing (and prints). Traditionally, the Leipzig academy is known for its focus on print and the book/graphic arts. But the wide range of drawing was the most surprising and strongest part of the Open Studios.