Strips of Time - Collection of the District Upper Palatine

Opening: Sunday, 17.09.2023 at 2:30 p.m.

Featuring the new acquisitions of 2023 by Edith Deyerling, Michael Franz, Barbara Sophie Höcherl, and Johanna Strobel

And works by Alois Achatz, Sigrid Barrett, Jürgen Böhm, Alfred Böschl, Klaus Caspers, Stefan Göler, Elena Helfrecht, Annegret Hoch, Michael Hottner, Jürgen Huber, Pia Mühlbauer, Christina Kirchinger, Vasilij Plotnikov, Astrid Schröder, Richard Triebe and Richard Vogl

This year, the district of Upper Palatinate is once again supporting outstanding artists from the region by making new acquisitions for its high-quality art collection. As usual, the city of Schwandorf will ensure that these works receive public visibility by presenting them in the context of the existing collection at the Kebbel Villa. The aim of the collection of the Upper Palatinate district, which has now grown to 208 works in total, is to represent the entire spectrum of work by artists from the Upper Palatinate.

The title Strips of Time (Zeitstreifen) of the 2023 collection exhibition refers to general aspects that play a role when expanding an art collection on a regular basis, as well as to specific formal or thematic characteristics that the current new acquisitions exhibit. The annual additions to the collection of the Upper Palatinate district reflect the art of the region at a particular time, i.e. they provide an excerpt of the status quo of Upper Palatinate art at a point in history.

Stripes as an element of a sequence, within which gestural-abstract painting unfolds, form the structure of the newly acquired work Tease me Stripy (2021) by Edith Deyerling (*1980 in Weiden, lives in Frankfurt on the Main). The artist sees herself as a classic painter, but she also uses "un-classic techniques" such as airbrushing or fluorescent paint. Barbara Sophie Höcherl's (*1983 in Wörth a. d. Donau, lives in Hengersberg) installation Instabile III (2019) consists of strips of recycled plastic foam. Höcherl calls her ecologically sustainable artistic practice "Second Life" in which she uses filling materials that often end up in the rubbish bin after use, as well as taxidermy to give new visibility to dead animals in an altered form as aesthetic objects.

With his untitled work from 2019/22, Michael Franz (*1974 in Neustadt/Waldnaab, lives in Berlin) questions the current status of painting in the age of digital media and artificial intelligence. The work is based on a simple drawing that the artist created using a free app available on the internet. An algorithm then generated an 'ideal' photorealistic image of Franz's line drawing by matching it to similar images on the internet. The perception of time – whether in the moment in front of the mirror or in the moment in front of a work of art – is the focus of the three wall objects by Johanna Strobel (born in Regensburg, lives in New York).

Opening hours: Sun 11:30-17:00, Tue-Thu 13:00-17:00 and by appointment.

Admission to the exhibition is free.