The fourth solo exhibition of Lutz Braun at the gallery space of Jahn und Jahn in Munich presents an extensive overview of his paintings. On show are works of different formats made on traditional surfaces like canvases, but also on found materials like blankets and carpets. After a first catalogue (Lutz Braun. Arbeiten auf Papier, book launch at Jahn und Jahn, October 2021), this exhibition is accompanied by the publication of a second book dedicated to paintings, Lutz Braun. Abstrakter Realismus. Malerei 1998-2023. Included in the book is an interview in which Lutz Braun talks in detail about his work.

(Excerpts interview with Lutz Braun, July 2023, in: Lutz Braun. Abstrakter Realismus. Malerei 1998–2023, Cologne 2024, S.212–215)

“Around 1997, I began using fragments of old furniture as support for my paintings. These were easy to find in Frankfurt am Main where I lived at the time. The structures or patterns of these objects and materials suggested an almost literary narrative.”

“I often did not white-prime my paintings, so they suck the light while paper reflects it and seems brighter. With the burden of its cultural history, painting became a more substantial medium for the things I urgently wanted to say, or for emotional dispositions. But I tried to overcome these self-imposed bounderies, and as my work progressed, I changed to brighter grounds and colors. At the same time, subject matter shifted away from introspection towards social theory, history and political matters.”

“I had been looking to liberate my creative process, and so tried to exclude as many contextual factors as possible, such as art history, even history altogether. But as a means of orientation in a formal sense, I have always kept the picture frame – although sometimes varying in shape other than rectangular – to set the grounds for a painterly process. As soon as a composition seemed consistent within a given frame, a painting was finished while the narrative may still have been unclear, […]. […]: one would certainly see a continuous development, as well as series, in subject matter, technique and composition, if the works were provided with a date.”

“I tried to conceal a chronological development. It allowed me to play with the concept of the viewer of my persona. It also can suggest a different concept of time in painting. As if paintings were present all at once or had alsways been there, before they were discovered by the artist.”

“On a formal level, every painting is a reflection of crisis, struggle, progress, and failure, but I call to embrace political subject matter in order to bring about the social change we so desperately need. In painting, as in all art, we may envision a society thriving in social equality and ecological stability, just as we may sharply criticize the social and ecological destruction which capitalist structures bring about.”

“My painting Aufklärung shows a wolf wearing pants and shirt holding a lantern. […]. It actually looks a little bit like a sheep… a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Sunlight illuminates the wolf, exposing the costume. But he claims to be a voice of truth by holding his own source of light.”

“In the last decade, I have come to think more of political and social life, […], and it gradually showed in the works. However, I still kept my solitary field of imagination: a figure walking through a barren landscape; architectural ruins or an exploited forest; portraits with gloomy expressions; corpses or bones; carcasses of animals. But there are also more hopeful images, such as children playing, couples kissing, weeds growing, lugh trees and gardens, rain and flowing water, living animals, at times quite cute. Anger and violence are often rendered hopeful; they are articulated as heading towards a radical change.”

“My idea of ‘Abstract Realism’ came up more than twenty years ago when I believed that abstraction was a higher intellectual form of painting and realism an imitation of nature. However, I later found that these two options could be considered as one and the same. The two-dimensional representation of nature involves ‘translation’. Therefore, painting is always abstract and realistic at the same time because it creates a concept of existence which will be called ‘realistic’, but only if it has been established and accepted as viable.”

Lutz Braun, born 1976 in Schleswig, lives and works in Berlin. 1998–2003 Städelschule Frankfurt am Main (with Thomas Bayrle, Per Kirkeby, Leni Hoffmann, Ayşe Erkmen); 2017/2018 Substitute professorship for drawing, State Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe; 2023 professorship for painting, University of Art, Braunschweig; Grants/Residencies: 2006 Residency Tong Zhou Art District, Beijing; 2010 Residency Lenikus Stiftung, Wien; 2011, 2013, 2016 Residency Centro Cultural de Andratx, Mallorca; 2020/21 grant Stiftung Kunstfonds Neustart Kultur (1. Auflage); 2022 grant Stiftung Kunstfonds Neustart Kultur (2. Auflage); 2023 grant Stiftung Kunstfonds Neustart Kultur Plus. Selected solo exhibitions: 2023 und 2021 Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin; 2020 project space SP2, Berlin; 2020 Tilde, Amsterdam (with Sara Milio/Laure Prouvost); 2019 Jahn und Jahn, Munich; 2019 Galerie Sima, Nürnberg; 2018 Galerie Jacky Strenz, Frankfurt am Main; 2018 New Positions, Art Cologne, Cologne; 2016 Galerie Jahn Baaderstraße, München; 2016 Galerie Nagel Draxler, Cologne; 2014 Galerie Goldnuß, Bogen (with Isabelle Fein); 2013 Galerie Jahn Baaderstraße, Munich; 2013 Kunstraum Munich (with Ioan Grosu); 2013 Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin; 2012 ACME, Los Angeles; 2009 Blanket Gallery, Vancouver; 2009 After the Butcher, Berlin (with Michael Moos); 2008 Galerie Christian Nagel, Berlin; 2007 Random Gallery, Air de Paris (Praz-Delavallade, Paris; 2006 CourtYard Gallery Annex, Beijing (with Thomas Schroeren, Klaus Winichner); 2006 Galerie Christian Nagel, Cologne; 2005 ACME, Los Angeles (with Kai Althoff); 2004 Galerie Antik, Berlin; 2003 Autocenter Berlin; 2002 Lola Montez, Frankfurt am Main; 2002 Menschenraum, Berlin. Ausgewählte Gruppenausstellungen: 2019 Die Zukunft der SPD, Zwinger Galerie, Berlin; 2017 Welche Zeit, sagte sie, dachte er, Kunstverein Wilhemshöhe, Ettlingen; 2016 Der Zeit angemessen begegnen, Oldenburger Kunstverein; 2013 Apokalytik als Widerstand, Sammlung Tom Biber, Armeemuseum Ingolstadt; 2013 Painting Forever! KEILRAHMEN; KW – Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; 2011 Der Abstrakter Realismus, Galerie Jahn Baaderstraße, Munich; 2011 Captain Pamphile, Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg; 2009 Crotla Presents, Lothringer 13, Munich; 2008 5000 Jahre Moderne Kunst. Painting, Smoking, Eating, Villa Merkel, Esslingen; 2006 Von Mäusen und Menschen, 4th Berlin Biennale; 2003 Albert Schweizer spielt Bach, Linienstraße, Berlin.