Online exhibition

Otto Herbert Hajek (1927-2005) was a "public" artist in the best sense of the word. With his space-penetrations, color-paths, place-paintings and signal-paintings he intervened in the space from the beginning. While he initially aimed at opening up the core volume in order to make space a player in his bronzes, which were still dedicated to gestural Informel, he soon became involved with urban and architectural space, which he played a major role in shaping, if not actually shaping. Thus he left his mark between Saarbrücken and Berlin, Munich and Celle, one could also say globally: between Medellin (Colombia) and Adelaide (Australia). Hajek remained particularly influential throughout his life - not least as chairman of the German Artists' Association - in Stuttgart, where he had already studied from 1947 to 1954, but his pugnacious spirit also enabled him to leave his mark on the Bonn Republic, especially under Willy Brandt, with a distinctly democratic understanding of art. The exhibition shows works from all creative periods, but pays special attention to the contour-veiling spatial knots, fragile layering, and signal-like color paths, not without neglecting painting and works on paper. From a temporal distance, the utopia of social space that Hajek's aesthetic aspired to can in many cases only be glimpsed, but the individual works still radiate a sublime mood that enchants physical space-sometimes with vegetative, structural, or constructive elements. In addition, the seismographically moving gouaches of the early years, as well as the large-format, filigree "letters," make highly sensitive, almost meditative statements that culminate in the concise Farbweg paintings.