Karin Kneffel: At the Moment

In cooperation with the artist Karin Kneffel, the Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR is showing an extensive exhibition with around 80 of her works. The presentation gathers oil paintings and watercolours from 2004 to the present and provides poignant insights into the multifaceted work of one of the most high-profile representatives of German contemporary art.

A building façade in the evening light, the view into an exhibition hall, views of cosy interiors—the putatively familiar atmosphere in the works of Karin Kneffel cannot endure beyond the first glance. At second glance, optical refractions, reflections and spatial distortions irritate viewing habits.

In Kneffel’s works, different layers of time and perception are superimposed onto one another, which the artist condenses with the inclusion of references to the history of art, architecture and film to produce complex pictorial inventions. Illusion and reality, past and present, representationalism and dreamlike disassociation flow into one another and allow nearly surreal moments to arise. Despite its seemingly tangible appearance, designed with the greatest possible perfection, the painting of Karin Kneffel at the same time usually remains puzzlingly secretive and maintains a mysterious distance.

Karin Kneffel became internationally known with her humorous animal portraits, large-format fruit still lifes and ambiguously designed interior views. The artist, born in 1957 in Marl, studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Johannes Brus, Norbert Tadeusz and Gerhard Richter, who took her on as a master student. Following a professorship at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen, she has taught at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich since 2008. Karin Kneffel lives and works in Düsseldorf and Munich.