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Bastian Börsig

Bastian Börsig

Etwas scheint nicht in Ordnung zu sein

Bastian Börsig (b. Schwäbisch Hall, 1984; lives and works in Karlsruhe) toys with the beholder’s associations. Archaic, emotional, and playful, his pictures limn situations in a few adroit strokes; immersing ourselves in his narratives of agitation, it dawns on us that everything is not what it first seemed. Börsig’s paintings teeter on the line between representation and abstraction, gradually dissolving figuration in the accretion of richly layered coats of paint. The artist deliberately uses color to elicit representational associations, prompting our imagination to see things, but he never simply and purely paints objects. He deftly elicits assumptions and expectations only to foil them, leaving us baffled. As Börsig—who describes his art as abstract—says, a picture is good when it conveys an idea while also contributing to a discourse on painting.

This book—the artist’s first monograph—presents works of the past four years, complemented by an essay by Marc Wellmann and a preface by Isabella Gerstner.