RAPHAEL ADJETEY ADJEI MAYNE
KRIŠTOF KINTERA
WILL PECK
MINJAE LEE
JENNIFER LÓPEZ AYALA
SEASON PREVIEW: WHAT ABOUT PAINTING?

HELDENREIZER Contemporary is pleased to present What about Painting? a group exhibition featuring the five artists of the upcoming season 2022/23. Uniting a wide range of media and with no classical painting on view, the presented artists invite installation, print, performance and textile art onto the centre stage. With four new artists on the gallery roster, this preview showcases aspiring young voices in the contemporary arts.

Jennifer López Ayala will debut at HELDENREIZER Contemporary with Memorials No.1 of Optogenetic (2022). The wall object has been part of the recent exhibition yesterday, today, tomorrow at the ZERO Foundation in Düsseldorf. The artist’s main interest lies in the sculptural space and the phenomenon of pain, which the López Ayala transports through powerful in-situ installations containing up to 100,000 pieces of eggshells. Here the spectator encounters a contemplative space. As a further visual means to convey her artistic quest, large-scale photographs also capture her ephemeral investigations. In spring 2023 López Ayala will create an immersive site-specific installation specifically for our 165 square metre gallery space. 

Krištof Kintera is widely known for his sculptures, assemblages and installations made from found objects, such as discarded electronic components and everyday objects with originally ordinary or even banal functions, such as a light bulb. The variety of compositions of new realities which the artist creates address current affairs such as global, political, social and environmental issues. The two exhibited pieces Relics for Holy Monday (2022) and God is electric (2022) are emblematic for the Czech artist’s critical yet humorous approach. Parallel to his exhibition at Dresden’s Lipsiusbau, Krištof Kintera will present his second solo show with HELDENREIZER Contemporary, curated by Stella Toonen (Tate Modern, London), this November. 

Minjae Lee has won acclaim for his gripping performances and installations. For the Korean artist the body has always been both his subject and medium. Nach der Angst ist vor der Angst #6 (After the Fear is Before the Fear #6), which has just been celebrated at the BBK exhibition Tacker, similarly demands Lee’s full bodily exertion. Stemming from his Angst series, a subject that the contemporary artist has been pursuing over the last two years, the performance and installation will again confront the visitor with the distressing facets of fear. In the performance Lee breathes in rhythmical intervals onto the glass window of a wooden cabin that he pushes around the gallery space, while the word “Angst” appears again and again on the glass each time he exhales. 

Raphael Adjetey Adjei Mayne creates large-scale exuberant fabric and mix media works on the sewing machine. The Ghanaian artist merges African wax print fabrics with pieces of Western clothing into art works that explore gender politics, social marginalisation and African rural and urban experiences. Always at the centre stage: the portrait. For that he deploys models from his near proximity and images and iconography drawn from the media. In the season preview Mayne showcases a picture which gives the spectator already a glimpse of I want to be like you when grow up his first solo show forthcoming at HELDENREIZER Contemporary on 9 September 2022. 

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Will Peck’s prints, videos, drawings and images are characterised by the examination and deconstruction of processes and of their recording with technical devices such as scanners, printers, cameras or computer mice. On view is ...more (11), which fascinating imagery results from magnets that the artists places on the surface of a flatbed scanner and which in the scanning process leave appealing incidental traces. In January 2023 the artist from London will in his first exhibition in Germany present a selection of scans, 3d prints and C-prints.

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