Radikale Gegenwart / Radical Presence

Armin Boehm (b. Aachen, 1972; lives and works in Berlin) is one ofthe most prominent representational painters working today. Herecords his unsparing observations of the world in which we live infascinatingly detail-rich paintings and collages. Toying with a continuityof confusion, he jauntily mixes elements from pop culture and arthistory, from architecture and literature, from the politics of the dayand fantasy.If his early oeuvre had an air of gloom and mysticism, his works fromthe 2010s evince a shift toward flat expanses of lighter hues, ofteninterspersed with small scraps of fabric. There are portraits in pasteltones and dreamy flower still lifes; most memorable perhaps are thehaunting depictions of dramatic scenes: street fighting outside theElbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Bataclan massacre, a political orgyat Berghain. The grotesque figures and the creeping sense of dreadbring the paintings of the German Expressionists to mind. SurveyingBoehm’s more recent oeuvre, the comprehensive monograph showcasesworks created between 2010 and 2018. It is rounded out byan essay by Jonathan Griffin and a conversation with the artist byPeter Gorschlüter.