Martin Honert

The Vancouver Art Gallery introduces a new exhibition by German-born contemporary artist Martin Honert, co-curated by Gallery director Kathleen S. Bartels and artist Jeff Wall. Martin Honert is on view from June 29 to October 14, 2013.

Known for creating meticulously rendered sculpture based on images and memories from his childhood in post-war Germany, Martin Honert recalls his generation's experience by basing his works on images drawn from family photographs, illustrations from schoolbooks and storybooks, as well as his own childhood drawings. With each image he seeks to make it emotionally inert and reduce it to its "purest state" by isolating the image from its original context and often dramatically changing its scale. In so doing he attempts to "save an image before it dies within me."

In Honert's polyester-and-resin sculpture Feuer (Fire) (1992), the artist was inspired by a dictionary illustration that, as a child, became the very definition of fire in his mind. Honert then translated this symbol into plaster, with a later work evolving into a three-dimensional floor sculpture of painted and illuminated resin. His large-scale human figures, such as those in Riesen (Giants) (2007), manage to capture a sense of wonder achieved by recreating the world from a child's point of view. Martin Honert investigates the potency of remembered images.

"We are thrilled to present Honert's painstakingly rendered works in the first Canadian museum exhibition by this remarkable contemporary artist." says Gallery director Kathleen S. Bartels. "This marks the fourth in a series of exhibitions I have co-curated with Jeff Wall."

Martin Honert is organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery and co-curated by Kathleen S. Bartels, director, and artist Jeff Wall.

Martin Honert

artists:
Martin Honert

curators:
Kathleen S. Bartels, Jeff Wall