punktum

What does a 90-year-old artist like Strawalde do?

He paints, he works. Last year, when all the appointments overflowed, on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, the two of us had deliberately decided not to have an exhibition at the Born Gallery. Together with the Kunsthalle in Rostock, there was a “congratulatory exhibition” in the Schaulager of the museum, the retrospective is still pending, which will take place after the renovation of the main wing. At that time, we had agreed on a solo exhibition in the spring of 2022 at the Gallery Weekend in Berlin, and in 2023 the exhibition, in a modified form of course, will move on to Born on the Baltic Sea. And then, just a week ago, we had arranged to meet in his studio apartment, I met an incredibly organized and well-prepared artist. I was familiar with his ambition to always show current works in galleries. But what was new, Strawalde, it seemed to me, already saw the exhibition in his mind’s eye. A just finished white picture, “necessarily daylight from the left” should be shown on the large gallery wall. In addition, a selection of new and recent works on paper, a kind of wall installation was intended. Three smaller, new canvases were added to the selection and then I was really surprised. Strawalde asked me to look through a whole stack of medium-sized, older works with him in an adjacent room. Firstly, he wanted to take a look at the canvases himself, and secondly, and I quickly realized, a painting was being sought. And it was found. As for Strawalde a painting plate, an overpainted offset printing plate in 157 x 122 cm, from 1997, not necessarily brand new, I noted, but excellent for exposition. Strawalde said that the “Malblech” was shown only once in an exhibition in Paris, well then it is time for another presentation, this time in Berlin. While looking through the pre-selected papers, the question of a title for the exhibition came up. I just held a work in my hand, which appealed to me strongly, turned it around, because the master always supplies an expansive signed back with title etc. “Punktum” the name of this sheet and after reading this I noticed that the title for the exhibition was found: Punktum.

Matthias Fuhrmann, April 2022