(born Tübingen, Germany in 1970) Untitled, silver foil, creased, folded, mounted on black canvas, over wooden board, 132 x 113 x 2.5 cm, mounted in Plexiglas box, 142 x 121 x 15.5 cm, (PS)

Provenance:
The Modern Institute, Glasgow

Anselm Reyle’s foil paintings in aluminium foil inspire assocations with southern German Baroque high altars.
“His draped and folded designs in aluminium foil, figuratively in danger of collapse, hint at gothic debates and past mannerist styles….Reyle’s art lives from contrast and the contradictory, from nothing really being compatible. … geometries appear in perverted forms, the exclusive combined with the everyday, Reyle’s preference is for the auratic, for clichés.” (p.20)
The artist uses the silvery material in various works; they include the striped works, as well as the reliefs in silver foil displayed in acrylic glass boxes. The cool, reflecting, opulently gathered silver foil set against the smooth black background creates a living, optical game of extreme contrasts.
“Everything I do, my entire artistic output, is based on found objects. Whether its foil that I’ve found in a window display, or finds related to more recent art history such as striped pictures. … The basic idea comes from something that is already there. The idea doesn’t come from inside me. I don’t look inside myself; rather I come across something which gives me an idea for the next step.”
(Anselm Reyle, p. 40f)
(From: exhibition catalogue Anselm Reyle, Mystic Silver, Eds. Dirk Luckow, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, 9.11.2012 – 27.1.2013)