ANTON HENNING

Anton Henning (*1964 in Berlin) lives in Berlin and Manker. Numerous Solo- and Group Exhibitions.

No Boundaries between Genres and Styles

Anton Henning is anarchic, a lover, equipped with intuitive intelligence and the nose of a truffle hunter. These are qualities that tend to be rare in today´s art. »Old-fashioned« qualities, one would like to say, although they are also forward-looking. I can´t follow all of Henning´s threads. It´s not possible, because he´s constantly evading one´s notion of visual concepts. However, he paints the way that once the »sculptor´s paws« made their sculptures. Yet while the »sculptor´s paws« and the »instinctual painters« went their own particular way, Henning takes many paths. He uses the dispositif of »painting« as the incarnation of possibilities, and he does this in an authentic way, not quotatively or ironically. . . . (Jean-Christophe Ammann)

Apparently, Henning´s art knows no bounds between genres and styles. In an exciting way, the artist takes patterns of different values from past epochs and revitalizes them in a mélange rich with allusions. On his subversive march through art history, he continually combines a vocabulary of abstract, ornamental forms with figural motifs, creating a dialectic relationship between the avant-garde and design, trash and salon art. Henning works outside the usual art movements and expectant attitudes. Viewers´ needs for obvious categorization are not fulfilled, and established forms of presentation are humorously undermined.

June 30, 2010 Caroline Schilling