With Revolution, Kunstmuseum Luzern is taking up the theme of this year’s Lucerne Festival and reflecting on this powerful concept within the visual arts. The exhibition does not try to illustrate the concept, but rather to engage atmospherically with the phenomenon, which implies collision, implosion and upheaval. The works of the American artist John Chamberlain (1927-2011) are juxtaposed with pieces by two younger artists: the large-scale paintings of the Swiss painter Christine Streuli (b. 1975) and the lavish gestures in both painting and sculpture of the Norwegian artist Ida Ekblad (b. 1980). The starting-point for the group exhibition, or rather for the three loosely combined solo exhibitions, was the observation that the three artists share a common sensibility and their interest in power, energy and intensity. They are quite plainly kindred spirits, in that all three artists, Chamberlain, Streuli and Ekblad essentially stretch, and overstretch, the intellect and the senses. The treatment of paint and materials by all three artists is raw, direct, immediate and unprettified. There is something fundamentally violent about the works, which emanate a great and excessive power. This art is not necessarily beautiful, but it is magnificent! It moves and enthrals, it disturbs, oppresses and delights at the same time. The works on show exert a fascination, but they also make great demands; the layers, the rough traces, the haptic quality of the works all remain enigmatic and unintelligible. The overwhelming nature of these works, in the sense that not everything can be understood down to the tiniest detail, is part of their quality. This art is revolutionary in that the process of intensification and excessive demand begins over and over again. Revolution in art is continuous, eternal and permanent. Compression, explosion, pace and a lack of moderation are central to this.

Mediarelease
Revolution: John Chamberlain, Ida Ekblad, Christine Streuli

Handout & Floorplan
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