Bernd Zimmer: Kristalwelt

NEW YORK, NY - Upsilon Gallery is pleased to present “Bernd Zimmer: Kristalwelt,” a survey of recent works by German artist Bernd Zimmer. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition at Upsilon Gallery, the first of all large scale paintings on canvas.

In the 70s/80s, Bernd Zimmer was a shoot that grew out of the root of the Abstract Expressionist era, forming his own school of thinking of painting widely known as the "Neue Wilde” or “New Savages”. These were a heterodox coterie of artists who refused to outrightly reject representation art, but entrenched themselves in a new language of abstracted representational art that was dynamically colorful, expressive, and “wild”.

Where many institutional artists like Franz Klein or Clyfford Still absolved themselves from a physical subject matter, Zimmer and his peers became committed to being free to paint the wild landscapes he traversed across the globe. The New Wild Painters considered themselves liberated from the institutional and esoterically intellectual paintings.

Having traveled almost every part of the globe, across Europe, Asia, South East Asia, the Americas, etc., Zimmer was entrenched by his experiences with nature of various terrains. Each painting is an equipoise journey into the nature or "landscape" of his experiences, evocative metamorphoses of abstracted compositions.

Reflexion über Kalt I portrays a poignant cool evening in a marshy woodland, reflected on the lake water, with scumbling brushwork, and directional paint drips like stars. Wandel (6) (translated Change) depicts the space between the branches of a tree with large sweeps of orange and green. Both share a Zimmer’s fascinated view of nature with representation and abstraction continually exchanging prominence.

Schwimmendes Licht I and Alles fließt XXII, both display the artist's thick impasto process of a multitude of layers emanating the essence of the water that is reflected, as well as the artists’ personal and artistic developments, a metamorphoses of the abstracted composition.

Mittsommer, Rot showcases Zimmer's more celestial paintings which reveal a sensation of the vast ever changing and expanse of life and space in motion. In any case, his subject matter often recedes behind the wildness of abstraction and branches out to a shared, metaphysical landscape.

From trees, to waterfalls, to mountains, to cosmos, Zimmer recognizes that humans and the universe and nature all interplay with a profound connection. Like an unrealistic dream or longing for something just out of reach, Zimmer’s paintings lean toward a metaphysical landscape, a Kristalwelt, (crystal world) of a transcendental exploration.

Bernd Zimmer was born in 1948 in Planegg, Germany, and lives and works in Polling (upper Bavaria) and Monteventano (Italy). The artist is the founder of the renown STOA169 in Polling, a columned all designed by a curated group of international artists in the heart of nature. He has received numerous awards and scholarships like the Karl Schmidt Rottluff Foundation and the Villa Massimo in Rome.

Zimmer has exhibited at such renown institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Museum of Modern Art San Francisco, and the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and his works are part of prestigious collections including Harvard Art Museum/Busch/Reisinger Museum, Camberidge; Modern Art Museum, Vancouver; Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris; Berlinische Galerie, Berlin; Buchheim Museum der Phantasie, Bernried; Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen; Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen; Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus as well as Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich among many more.

The show runs from September 4 - October 12, 2024, with an opening reception on September 4 from 6-8 pm.

Upsilon Gallery is located at 23 East 67th Street, New York, NY 10065. Exhibition hours are Monday by Appointment, Tuesday to Friday 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM, and Saturday 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM. Please contact the gallery at (646) 476-4190 or email at info@upsilongallery.com for further details.