JOHANNES WOHNSEIFER
#ruttkoenig
BAM, BERLIN, GERMANY7 SEPTEMBER – 14 SEPTEMBER 2019
#ruttkoenig is a temporary exhibition project that sets its main scope on the democratic approach of collaboration. Established by the high-profile König Galerie, based in Berlin and London, and the successful up-and-coming gallery model Ruttkowski68 from Cologne and Paris, #ruttkoenig focuses on the fusion of both opposites and commonalities. Whilst being different in their current position within the art market, they find common ground on a contextual level: both thrive for a joy of provocation, for the excitement for the vivacity of art and the mediation of Zeitgeist and contemporary aesthetics.
The art of Frédéric Platéus (b. 1976) toys with what is haptical, with the sense of touch, urging the spectator’s desire to lay hands on the pieces immediately. As soft forms and loud colors meet a shiny finish and slick surface, one almost seems to feel the smooth leather underneath the fingertips right away. Explosive typographies, that stem from the artist’s personal nostalgia, trigger a collective memory and bring up memories of the first sport shoe and of a youthful passion for cars, a fascination for motocross and BMX. Since he was a kid, Platéus has had an interest for logos, for catchy letterings and slick designs. Turned into art, the change of form is key. Frédéric Platéus wants to bring art to the wall, but faces a desire to break out of the classical form, to burst the frame. Here, perfection is essential for the Belgian artist, who declares his relationship to art as almost of a fetish-like nature. The final results are modern reliefs, readymades in label-driven aesthetics, highly accurate in form and color. 
Since decades, Johannes Wohnseifer (b. 1967) has shared a passion for typography and design and is interested in the idea of how we subconsciously internalize mundane aesthetics. His artistic mode is a subtle one, taking into consideration the risk of conveying an all too obvious contextual level. „I have always had a problem where text can too easily put an art piece into a specific context. I always tried to avoid this, while still using elements of text within my work,“ the artist, who is a professor at the Kunsthochschule for Medien in Cologne, explains. In his current body of work, bold letters and numerical series are imprinted on cardboard boxes, are sculpturally milled into monochrome canvases. They are passwords, generated in the world wide web, altered by the artist himself. Functioning as a commentary on the omnipresent aesthetics of our virtual safety culture, Wohnseifer’s art makes the idea of a sphere of privacy in the public space more apparent. At the same time, his work expresses a desire to turn a digital abstraction into something humane, to return the digital it into the real, the analogue world.
© Images Roman März