Flashback Forward
Jörg Döring "Flashback Forward" @ 30works May 5, 2017, 7:00 PM
Does time really move forward...? To what extent does the past determine our present and future...? With the exhibition title "Flashback Forward," Jörg Döring addresses this very time paradox and weaves an artistic concept from motif references, (self)quotes, and experimental approaches that connect the past and present of Pop Art – thereby sketching out a piece of the future.
"The biggest challenge for an artist today is to create new, aesthetically relevant visual worlds amidst an overwhelming flood of images," summarizes Jörg Döring the current status quo. The Düsseldorf artist, who has been one of the most successful representatives of contemporary Pop Art in Germany for the past 25 years, does not delude himself into thinking he can reinvent the proverbial wheel. Döring knows: Everything has already been done. It’s not about the "What" or "Why" – his art aims to raise a new "How." Creating something entirely new, something that has not yet existed from what is already there, is the driving force for Döring, who describes himself as a "seeker." He finds his inspiration in the continuum and correlation of permanence and change.
Preserving the good while daring the new: Jörg Döring draws on both traditional and innovative elements to create new material. He embeds icons from the past into new material contexts using the latest reproduction and collage techniques, giving them a futuristic aura and ultimately rendering them timeless. Hollywood heroes and film goddesses like Steve McQueen and Brigitte Bardot, as well as contemporary supermodels, are dressed in material worlds of oil or epoxy resin and reinterpreted in an epochal manner. The seemingly perfect nature of these icons is disrupted and alienated through watercolor effects, color gradients, or thick segments, until they possess a dynamic and what Jörg Döring calls "peculiarity": materiality and stylized surface as core elements and independent characteristics, behind which the pure motif consciously recedes.
In fact, it is techniques and materials that represent the greatest fascination for Döring. "Oil paint has been the most enduring material used by artists for nearly 600 years. Its value is undisputed, and its consistency and handling have remained the same for centuries. I want to exploit and expand its potential by fusing it with other techniques or using it in deliberately contrasting ways," says Jörg Döring. In his new works, epoxy resin is also employed, which typically serves as a mere carrier material – but in Döring's hands, it becomes an emancipated protagonist of the image. "When working with epoxy resin or oil, it’s about creating structures, tactility, and sensuality. This fulfills the renewed longing for the handmade, the authentic. These are the criteria that give the work its aura and momentum."
"Flashback Forward" captures these moments virtuously – and translates them into formal and aesthetic timelessness.
An artist talk with Jörg Döring, Gérard Margaritis, and art and culture journalist Yorca Schmidt-Junker will take place during the opening.
Jörg Döring lives and works in Düsseldorf. His works are represented in numerous international private collections and have been presented at Art Karlsruhe, the Red Dot Art Fair/Miami, and the Art Fair in Cologne.
Jörg Döring "Flashback Forward" @ 30works Opening: May 5, 2017, 7:00 PM
Exhibition: May 6 - May 27, 2017
Opening hours: Tue-Fri 3:00 PM - 7:00 PM, Sat 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM
30works – Antwerpener Str. 42 – 50672 Cologne –
Tel. 0221 – 5700 250 - hello@30works.de - www.30works.de