Anselm Reyle: Surfacing
Anselm Reyle (1970) has his first solo exhibition in Hungary at acb Gallery. The artist, who has dominated the Berlin and German art scene since the late 1990s, has become a trademark for his mirror-foil paintings and plexiglass objects, which have inspired artists of the younger generation, such as Márton Nemes, represented by the gallery.
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One of the fundamental questions and areas of research in Reyle's art is where the fine line between art and kitsch lies. As well as engaging in a clear dialogue with the packaging fetish of consumer society, Reyle's collected foil images are a bravura record of vulnerability, transience and impermanence.
The exhibition at the acb is a very intense, total visual experience, not least because of the wallpaper installation that covers every surface of the gallery space. Reyle's foil works were among the first artists to become aware of the increasing self-centeredness of our society and our public sphere. The meta-space of his reflective foil and plexiglass works had already become our reflection at the turn of the twenties, and has challenged the new twists and turns of social media culture in recent decades.
Reyle instrumentalises the entire arsenal of his art, which is unclassifiable in the gallery space, through the wallpaper of the filtered mirror foil, from painting and ceramics to neon objects and installations. Reyle's art and found objects, which start from abstraction, also reflect on the role of modernism in our society, and the artist draws from classics of German art such as Polke and Richter, but his work also explores the intersection of fashion, window dressing and art. The artist operates not only with sensual but also with conceptual artistic means in the background of his works. She also incorporates found objects and urban experiences into her art, for example, her neon boxes are inspired by the shop windows of the red light district near the Reeperbahn in Hamburg.
Perhaps less publicised than his other works are his unconventional ceramics, whose classical structures seem to be stretched from within by their dynamics. Reyle treats his ceramics almost as paintings, working their surfaces with the tools of painting, and he is able to evoke his panel paintings in the aesthetic experience of fired glazes. And the fundamental reflective experience of his art is provided by the metallic posture of the ceramic, polished into a special mirror. Visitors can also encounter a number of Reyle's intense paintings, which activate an over-saturated sense of neon colour and plastic, in his exhibition at acb.
acb Gallery
Founded in Budapest in 2003, acb Gallery has consistently grown in the past two decades establishing itself as one of the leading actors in the Hungarian and Eastern European art market. Initially, the gallery’s focus was on Hungarian and international emerging and mid-generation neo-conceptual artists, who became active after the political changes in the former Eastern Bloc in 1990. Since then, the gallery has expanded its focus, and now represents numerous Hungarian neo-avant-garde artists who have left their mark on art history since the 1960s and 1970s, as well as members of the youngest generations beside the already established ones.
Since the autumn of 2022, acb runs three exhibition spaces: the main gallery space, acb Attachment, which serves as a project space, and acb Plus, dedicated to large-scale solo and group presentations.
acb’s research and publishing department, acb ResearchLab was founded in 2015. This platform within the gallery aims to fill the gaps in the reception and publication of Hungarian neo-avant-garde and post-avant-garde oeuvres by studying bodies of works and art phenomena previously treated as peripheral.
The gallery holds significant importance within the global art market, actively promoting its artists nationally as well as internationally and engaging in art fairs, such as the Art Basel in Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach, the Frieze Masters London or the ARCO Madrid.
