The exhibition ‘Art is the daughter of prosperity’ in the Lycra Room brings together works by Anna Ley and Timur Lukas, two artists who have been friends since their student days HFBK Hamburg and ADBK Munich since their student days.
They have already presented works together in the ‘Inner Circle’ exhibitions at Elektrohaus Hamburg and Kösk Munich, they have already presented works together.
Anna Ley deals with thematic overarching themes in her series of works. Her current series ‘Bibliography’ at the Kai Erdmann Gallery illuminates literature and teaching. With a keen eye and precise brushstrokes, she paints book covers that have shaped her have shaped her life. Works such as Erich Maria Remarque’s ‘Nothing New in the West’ serve as cautionary symbols against war. The selection of her works is personal and reflects Ley’s critical view of society. Alongside the Bible is Karl Marx’s ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’, which points to the tensions between religion and religion and political ideology. Fantasy classics such as ‘Harry Potter’ and “The Lord of the Rings” also evoke nostalgic feelings and are reminiscent of the formative years of the 90s and 2000s.
Another highlight is the painting ‘Heinrich-Böll-Gymnasium’, which shows the iconic ‘Top Light 250’ overhead projector – a relic of school days gone by. With works like these, Ley succeeds in making values, interests and political attitudes tangible. The combination of feminist demands and a love of dogs, as in the ‘Was ist was?’ series of dog books alongside the left-wing daily newspaper ‘Junge Welt’, makes the heart beat faster and brings humour to the political debate.
Timur Lukas concentrates on what is lost and what remains. His works reflect a transience that is mirrored in the architecture and old photographs. Lukas‘ research method of buying up foreign family archives and searching for motifs shows his fascination for the composition of old photographs. By looking at these images, he establishes a connection to the unknown families and transforms them into universal spaces of memory.
Lukas‘ painterly transformations bring the past to life. His figures, which become shadowy figures through impressionistic colour gradients, move through dream-like landscapes and interiors.
interiors. Works such as ‘Monks’ or ‘Shisha’ reinforce this illusionistic mood with garish, oscillating colour palettes.
In ‘Art is the daughter of prosperity’, Leys and Lukas‘ works merge into a dialogue about transience, society and personal influences. Ley’s precise and conceptual way of working meets Lukas‘ fragmentary landscapes and interiors, which display aesthetic analogies to photography in their lined-up positioning and anonymised facial features. This exhibition invites the public to rediscover the traces and remnants of the everyday and to reflect on them in a kaleidoscopic interplay of memory and fiction.
