Under the title “Das Was Bleibt” [What Remains] Haus am Lützowplatz presents the painter René Wirths (b. 1967) in his first institutional solo exhibition in Berlin.

René Wirths is best known for a novel form of still life. The carefully selected items that he brings to his studio as “models” turn into peculiar image objects on large-format canvases. They are characterized by strict top or profile views of the objects, by their image- or frame-filling composition, by a neutral “laboratory-cold background” (Hanno Rauterberg), by at times enormous magnification and amazing detail, turning the particular thing at hand into an image object floating at eye level. Painting ostensibly becomes a medium to analyze the essence of pictorial representation.

The exhibition also presents René Wirths as a portraitist. Both genres complement and penetrate his work in a variety of ways, and are grounded in a profoundly community-oriented humanism and in the body as a medium of perception.

René Wirths, born in Waldbröl, was raised in Berlin, studied at the Berlin Hochschule der Künste (today’s UdK) from 1992 to 1998, most recently as a master student of Wolfgang Petrick.

Conversational Curator Tour:
Marc Wellmann gives a tour of the exhibition, joined by Renate Flagmeier, Senior Curator, Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge
Thursday, February 23, 2017, 19h

Artist Conversation:
René Wirths and Marc Wellmann
Thursday, March 9, 2017, 19h