STEFAN VOGEL
Als wär nichts geschehn
28 October - 9 December, 2023
“Als wär nichts geschehn” (As If Nothing Has Happened) is the title of Stefan Vogel's second solo exhibition at SCHÖNEWALD, Dusseldorf. It is the first exhibition created within the scope of his fellowship at the Villa Massimo in Rome. It includes 30 individual works and props. Stefan Vogel's oeuvre offers a variety of approaches. In his drawings, paintings, collages and installations minimalist and materialistic expression, abstraction and concrete poetry meet as well as aspects of the ready-made and conceptual strategies.
“What works and projects was Stefan Vogel able to realise during his fellowship?” Thanks to a grid of nails, there were new exhibitions in Studio 5 on an almost daily basis. It is fair to say that Stefan Vogel produced new works every day. Many works remained ephemeral because they were site-specific. Several series with different leitmotifs were created or at least begun in Rome. The exhibition “Als wär nichts geschehn” (As If Nothing Had Happened) will show what happened to the black-and-white photographs of the flowers in the garden of Villa Massimo and to the two large canvases that were stretched in Rome but never worked on. The calendar with photographic papers, one of which Vogel put in his pocket every day during his stay in Rome to be developed in the evening, also bears witness to his daily work. The fact that Stefan Vogel does not want to separate life from art is evident in his use of mattresses, plates, and kitchen towels, which inspire reflections on interior and exterior, boundaries and intimacy, as well as on composition and decoration. Photographs of the famous wall of Villa Massimo serve as sketches for future battle scenes. The large canvases entitled Largo are frottages from the last days of Vogel’s stay in Rome: they were taken from the gravel ground of Villa Massimo using the gardener’s electric vehicle.” (Dr. Julia Draganović, Villa Massimo, Rome)
