June 23, 2017
SCHLOSSPLATZ IN FLUX
A Documentary in Painting by Christopher Lehmpfuhl
The internationally known Berlin based Plein-Air painter, Christopher Lehmpfuhl (born 1972), has concentrated on the imposing and fast-paced urban changes at the Berlin Schlossplatz for almost a decade. Like no other: continuous and intense. He has artistically transposed every single significant construction phase of Schlossplatz in his large-scale, enormous pastose oil paintings (70,87×94,49 inch).
The impulse for Lehmpfuhl to artistically grapple the subject of Schlossplatz came with the demolition of the Palace of the Republic in 2008. To be exact, it was the very moment when just the two stairwell towers remained standing: “For me, this moment was art, I wanted to keep hold of it!”
In the years that followed, Lehmpfuhl artistically documented the construction of the Humboldt-Box, the erection and dismantling of the Temporary Art Hall, the emergence of the green spaces with their typical wooden bridges, and even the excavation stages of the cellar vault of the former Berliner Stadtschloss (Berlin city castle). On June 12th, 2013 Lehmpfuhl eventually cast the laying of the foundation stone for the city castles onto his canvases, as well as the erection phase of the city castle at the time of the laying of the raft foundation. Brought in line chronologically, the dynamic change of the place is traceable in his works. This goes from the completion of the shell construction in 2015, to the fabrication of the cupola, to the details like bricks and stucco works. Over one hundred “city scape portraits” of Schlossplatz, as well as his important and monumental transformations, have created a one-of-a-kind contemporary historical source. Berlin, a city reigned by the temporary, has found its true chronicler for the 21stcentury in Christopher Lehmpfuhl. And a constant and tangible one at that.
The painting shown here “Berlin Stadtschloss in light, October 2015” was created from the terrace of the Bertelsmann representation facing the view on the palace. Lehmpfuhl selected this piece to represent his entire body of the work due to its depiction of the palace as it appeared in the middle of deep construction and transformation.
At present, these works largely remain in the Reinhold Würth Collection. For the opening of the city castle, a huge show is planned, bringing together Lehmpfuhl’s paintings on the demolition of of the Palast der Republik (“Die Neue Mitte”) and those on the the reconstruction of the city castle.
Erika Maxim-Lehmpfuhl
View the situation…
View card
 
from June 22, 2017
Nach der Natur /Following nature
Galerie Ludorff, Düsseldorf
 
from June 17, 2017
Galerie im Woferlhof, Bad Kötzting
 
June 3, 2017
Opening Museum Villa Rosenhang, Weilburg/Lahn
Museum Villa Rosenhang
 
2. Juni bis 9. Juli 2017
Galerie Meier, Freiburg
mit Hans-Joachim Billib
 
September 30, 2016 to September 3, 2017
“Water, clouds, wind”
Kunsthalle Würth, Schwäbisch Hall
 
from 11. Januar 2016
“Recent paintings from the Berlin castle series”
European School of Management and Technology, Berlin

July 2, 2017
Haus Lydda, Bethel, Bielefeld
 
July 8 to September 3, 2017
Galerie AC-Noffke, Ratzeburg
Group show with the “Norddeutsche Realisten”
 
July to 23, 2017
ART Bodensee
Galerie Tobias Schrade, Ulm
 
July 28 to September 14, 2017
Marburger Kunstverein
 
September 9, 2017
Galerie Kornfeld, Berlin