Johannes Kahrs

Men with music dedicated to Johannes Kahrs, one of the most outstanding figures in German and international painting since the 1990s, is the first solo show of the artist in an Italian museum. The first floor of the gallery houses thirty paintings, some of which have never been presented to the public, that are laid out in a site-specific itinerary conceived by the artist to suit the display areas of the museum. The theme of the exhibition will be the representation of identity and the male body in relation to sexuality, violence, desire and loss.

Kahrs’ painting is distinguished by its intense emotional power and its perceptual and psychological impact. The starting point of each of his works are either photographs, or cinema or television stills, or, as has been the case for his most recent works, photos taken by the artist himself. Kahrs mixes fragments of images with his personal experiences, and places them in an atmosphere suggesting fiction, memory, dreams or imagination in which it is difficult to distinguish outlines. His is an ambiguous universe, with blurred, mysterious outlines, in which the multiple dimensions of desire and perception are charged with a tension that has no particular setting in time or space. It is difficult to describe what is happening in his scenes or even to identify their subject. What remains is an atmosphere, a sensation, a doubt and a profound fascination.

The exhibition is completed by a bilingual catalogue designed as an artist book, published by Diamondpaper, Berlin, with a conversation between the artist and the curator Alessandro Rabottini.

The exhibition is supported by the contribution of IFA – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and realized in collaboration with Goethe-Institut Mailand.

Johannes Kahrs
MEN WITH MUSIC