Art / Art Calendar - 11 March 2022

Dieter Nuhr - "Reisezeit - Zeitreisen"

- Traveler and Artist -

"Art is always just a suggestion".

The city of Meybod in Iran - Travel painting by Dieter Nuhr shown in the "Reisezeit Zeitreisen" exhibition at the

 Hetjens Museum in Düsseldorf, Germany

©Dieter Nuhr

"Reisezeit - Zeitreisen" - ("Travel Time - Time Travel") is on view from March 15 to July 31 at Hetjens Museum, the Düsseldorf Ceramics Museum in the Old Town in Düsseldorf. Alethea & Art Magazine met artist Dieter Nuhr on the occasion of the opening and learned how ceramics inspired him for "Reisezeit - Zeitreisen" and which artistic technique he currently likes to work with.

Dieter Nuhr has become famous for his satirical analyses as a cabaret artist and television star. But he has also worked as an artist all his life.

His latest series of paintings, "Reisezeit Zeitreisen", a mixture of painting and photography, shown at the Hetjens Museum, consists of romantic dream landscapes and paintings of ceramics, multi-layered, poetic, and intricate. The large format paintings seem historical but are current photos and show city panoramas, coastal landscapes, mountains from all parts of the world and also ceramics. Everything lies under a rich veil, or seems to decompose in beautiful colors, or they could be historical yellowed photos or flaking gold. In the museum, the paintings are decorated together with the ceramics that the artist has chosen for his work and that have the same country reference. The artist leaves the interpretation of his works to the viewer, writing in his preface "Art is always just a suggestion.

"Reisezeit Zeitreisen"

This old vase from Japan, which is in the Hetjens Museum, was selected by the artist

©Dieter Nuhr

The inspiration - Vase from the collection of the Hetjens collection

©Hetjens Museum

"The process of going through a museum that has a 10,000-year-old history is very similar to that of my journey".

The idea for the exhibition came about when Dieter Nuhr met the director of the Hetjens Museum, Dr. Daniela Antonin. She inspired him with her descriptions of the structure of the Hetjens collection, which is so large that only the smallest part can be housed in the museum. The artist was fascinated by the history of ceramics, about the trade routes it had to travel or the wars that had taken place because of it.

Dieter Nuhr saw that his passion for travel pictures belonged together with the history of ceramics, which also had to travel long distances, and had to be told together. "The process of going through a museum that has a 10,000-year-old history is very similar to that of my journey".

For "Reisezeit - Zeitreisen" Dieter Nuhr used his photo archive material, because he could no longer travel because of Corona. "You don't travel in space but you travel in time - every photo is a retrospective." Dieter Nuhr.

The artist used photos of his first Norway trip, which he made without parents in 1967, to images of his Asia trip in 2017. In addition, he photographed some of the museum's ceramics, which he selected himself.

For Dieter Nuhr, the Hetjens Museum is one big journey through time. "There are ceramics made 10,000 years ago and those that tell an entire world history - it has aura and you look into the past." 

"Reisezeit Zeitreisen"

©Dieter Nuhr

Antique cup from Iran - from the collection of the Hetjens Collection

©Hetjens Museum

"Reisezeit - Zeitreisen" was made using digital painting techniques. He programs his digital brushes with a wide variety of complex photo data, not just an oil painting brush, but the brushes and tools are constantly recharged. Dieter Nuhr's current paintings consist entirely of data material - yet they appear as if painted with paint. The painter does not simply superimpose digital layers but weaves them together.

The artist is convinced of the digital painting technique because he always wants to work forward-looking and is always interested in the latest techniques. Digitality is very important to him, because he wants to paint everywhere on his travels and immediately reach for his painting tablet. Advantages are also that some steps can be undone and several approaches can be developed experimentally in parallel.

"Reisezeit - Zeitreisen"

©Dieter Nuhr

The artist

Dieter Nuhr studied painting at the Folkwang School in Essen. He worked as a painter long before he appeared on stage for the first time. For family reasons, however, he combined his life's goal of being a visual artist with studying to be a teacher in order to appease his family. But he also says of himself that he was overtaxed to market his art himself - for this reason he painted in secret all his life.

His stage career, which he says began purely as an accident, allowed him to travel with good photographic equipment to the farthest and most difficult corners of the world - from Patagonia to North Korea. Then, about 15 years ago, his work was discovered by a gallery owner.

Since then Dieter Nuhr has been exhibited all over the world. A highlight was his own exhibition in the museum of his hometown Ratingen. Today he has exhibitions in China, Spain and Russia.

Dieter Nuhr says of himself that his main identity is that of a traveler, from what he sees on his travels he makes texts or pictures. This year he will travel to Iraq, Georgia and Senegal, where he will also exhibit.

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He loves his role as a painter, although he can be more extroverted on stage. He feels it is nice not to always have to make jokes, and to be able to describe the world more seriously with his art, yet everything in life has to be seen with humor.

The exhibition 

Dieter Nuhr - "Reisezeit - Zeitreisen" ,"Travel Time - Time Travel"

can be seen from March 15 to July 31 in Hetjens Museum

Where:

Hetjens Museum

Schulstraße 4, 40213 Düsseldor

duesseldorf.de/hetjens

The artist:

dieternuhr.de

By C. Mauer, 11 March 2022