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Norbert WITZGALL

Introduction

Norbert Witzgall focuses on a single genre: the portrait. However, by investigating the possibilities and testing the conventions that surround it, Witzgall takes the painted portrait far beyond the boundaries of traditional intentions. Each work is a system of references. Witzgall appropriates a variety of carefully selected photographic source materials, from images of stars from magazines, to movie stills from the classic cinema, or homemade shots of friends, often using collage techniques to turn these into compositions.
Witzgall's working method reveals a complex, contradictory attitude: he idealizes his subject but simultaneously also questions the medium and appears to remain skeptical about the autonomy and the meaning of painting. Norbert Witzgall develops an unusually fascinating language that is alternately reminiscent of the Biedermeier period, pop-culture, Dada, and Surrealism.

Norbert Witzgall's first solo exhibition in Belgium was ‘Nose is a nose is a nose’, held at Deweer Gallery, in 2011; In 2012 the artist was selected for the Solo Show Section at Art Brussels, with the project ‘Quod Lizbeth’.
Recently he worked for a duo-exhibition in After The Butcher (2014, Berlin) together with the Dutch artist Mathilde Ter Heijne. In their joint project photographic images of Ter Heijne were projected on Witzgalls paintings. Also in the exhibition ‘Norbert Witzgall – Veronica’ (2015), Witzgall’s second solo show at Deweer Gallery, Mathilde Ter Heijne made her contribution.
Before that he had the solo-exhibition ‘Alles Erwin’ with Alex Müller at SOUTERRAIN, Berlin and in 2008 ‘Wir’ at Venetia Kapernekas Gallery, New York.
Norbert Witzgall further participated at, among others, the exhibition ‘Je t’aime … moi non plus’ at Musée des Beaux-Arts Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing, France (2013) and group exhibitions at the Kunstverein Nürnberg (curator Oriane Durand) and at Studio Kara Walker, New York in 2011 and at Gallery MC, New York in 2010.