Review

Galerie Schlichtenmaier presents elementary art in its new exhibition in Dätzingen Castle: Martin Bruno Schmid and Platino reflect in their works the very own creative power and its direct relationship to reality. In times of recollection, it also suits art to sit back on itself. It is a sign of a certain honesty that now and then it gets rid of its illusions and suffices itself. A rose is a rose is a rose - that was a succinct lyrical statement by Gertrude Stein over 100 years ago. Today one could say - the superficially inconspicuous work of Martin Bruno Schmid in mind: A wall or a paper is also only what they are. Or even more consistently: A dowel is a dowel is a dowel. The rose, we know, may be just a word, but it is more than that. A dowel, especially if it is made of pure gold, is more than a dowel. But what makes it different? That he himself represents art. The photographs Platino contributes to the new exhibition at Galerie Schlichtenmaier reinforce the fact that art can and must be significant in and of itself. His so-called "Externs" are witnesses of a designed and even a lived life. Platino had once declared this to be the consistently monochrome "Red Space", and later "Space" itself. Both artists understand art not as pleasing fiction, but as part of our everyday life, our life. The nevertheless beautiful appearance is deceptive: Schmid's golden dowel is actually a dowel, just as the drilled wall is a wall and the perforated paper is a paper. And Platino's photographs are documentary expressions of a private space. And yet everything becomes art. It sounds complicated, but it is of a compelling simplicity. We don't need iconography, no special knowledge to explain these works - it is enough to be aware that our own life world holds something ready that can become an adventure of perception, prepared and staged by artists, philosophers of everyday life. Or in other words: Let us look with different eyes at what we have already seen, but did not yet dare to think further: Only then do we see the walls, papers, pictures also really real in front of us.