current exhibition

Burning Man is color, Burning Man Burning Man is light, collective intensity and dissolution. In the solo exhibition "Burning Man" at the Coelner Zimmer in Düsseldorf, the artist duo Römer + Römer show a series of works that date back to their 2017 visit to the festival. Burning Man-Festival in Malerei übersetzt, stets visuelle Intensitäten erzeugend.  Captured in photography, scenes, architectures and objects from the Burning Man festival were translated into painting, always creating visual intensities. With the exhibition, the artist couple shares their views and impressions not only of the festival itself, but of a very specific way of seeing. In their paintings, seeing itself thus becomes an event. Thus, the works of Römer + Römer always initiate a game with the visual: the diffuse dissolves into precisely placed points, the clear image from a distance becomes a contourless one as soon as we seek the proximity of the image. From an art-historical point of view, the pictures may be reminiscent of Pointilism or Neo-Impressionism, but at the same time the works make direct references to the digital: As if pixelated, the images confront us, play with color contrasts, and pit (painted) dots against homogeneous (sprayed) surfaces. In their works, Römer + Römer always cause the distinction between painting and digital image to topple.

Held annually since 1986 in the Nevada desert in the U.S. for over 30 years, the festival is about ephemeral communities that celebrate togetherness. With light, fire and LED installations, mobile, futuristic-looking driving devices (the so-called Art Cars) and architecture, the festival stages collective togetherness as a spectacle. Here, the passing and the ephemeral are celebrated, a letting go full of dynamics and light. And it is precisely these aspects that the artist couple is interested in in their works: public togetherness, urban changes and their counter-designs and, above all, the new settings that emerge - full of colors and dynamic forms. Thus, with the images of Römer + Römer we become witnesses of contrasting situations, some of which are reminiscent of technoid-military structures and some of which seem to come from a science fiction film, but all of which appeal to us above all physically. They are images that make us feel immediately what it is like to be taken in by the shadow play of a fire show or to be almost blinded by the garishly vibrating LED light of the installations.  

The artist couple Nina (*1978 as Nina Tangian in Moscow) and Torsten Römer (*1968 in Aachen) got to know each other during their studies of painting at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, which they both completed as master students of A.R. Penck. They have been working together as an artist couple since 1998 and have been realizing their artistic projects together ever since. Since 2000 the couple lives and works in Berlin. Her artistic oeuvre includes various media and materials, ranging from painting, photography and printmaking to digital art and performance. 

Text:Svetlana Chernyshova