The exhibition The Seagull Constellation of the artist Pius Fox unites already in the title a variety of associations and readings. Accordingly diverse is his second exhibition in the gallery, in which he combines paintings on canvas, wood and aluminum, as well as works on paper, works made of glass and photographs in abstract and figurative manner.
The sound of screeching seagulls accompanied Pius Fox while he was working on his exhibition – even though his studio is located in the middle of Berlin and by no means along the coast. Great herring gulls, known as ›Hemerophile‹ (cultural followers), have been settling in the capital for several years. Far above the visible and audible birds, a diffuse nebula is found in the night sky not far from the star Sirius, whose cosmic clouds have a constellation with bird-like outlines and is called the Gull Nebula.
On the almost 10-meter-long wall in the back room of the gallery, Fox creates his very own cosmos. Works in a wide variety of formats hang together, sometimes isolated, sometimes in small groups. The artist plays with analogies and connecting lines that take up color gradients, forms, motifs, or even just distant associations. The apt title of a small-format work on aluminum is then also »Spur« (trace), on it perhaps a labyrinthine winding path, which the viewer may open up for themselves.
Arranged as if in a frieze, on the opposite wall hang framed drawings with graphic-looking formations sporadically interspersed with portraits. One falls out of line and leans on the windowsill: »Pablo (deconstruction of the Größenselbst)«. Yet the title of Fox’s work makes clear a thoroughly critical engagement with the universal artist, celebrated as a ›guiding star‹, in whose work countless birds (pigeons) also appear. Fascinated by the versatility and creative power of the artist, who worked as a painter, graphic artist, illustrator, ceramicist, stage designer, draftsman, etcher, and even poet, his self-image as a male artist can only be disconcerting today, 50 years after his death. Whether, in addition to the portrait, the glass work »Bruchstücke (die gefallene Wolke)« (Fragments (the fallen cloud) also arose from the preoccupation with Picasso: a conjecture. What is proven, however, is that Picasso, together with Georges Braque, refuted the illusion of the one stable view of the world through Cubism, and that from then on it was possible to take in all perspectives at once.
This unconditionally open view of the world, paired with curiosity and the joy of experimentation, can also be felt in the exhibition The Seagull Constellation.
