Michael Coughlan (USA)
Gert Rappenecker (Switzerland)
Janne Räisänen (Finland)

For several years prior to the exhibition, Los Angeles–based artist Michael Coughlan had exhibitedsculptures, drawings, and paintings in the United States and Europe. His project at Stalke Galleri consistedof twenty-four to thirty drawings executed in pen on paper. Through an economy of line, these works combinedabstraction, landscape, and figuration in a humorous and often deadpan manner. While humor and a subtle sense of irony pervadedthe works, Coughlan usedthem as part of a sincere search for images and formal structures that resistedpredetermined systems of meaning.

The works included in the exhibition rangedfrom desert landscapes with apocalyptic and at times sexually implicit narratives to abstract forms endowed with figurative personalities and a sense of the uncanny. Through this open-ended exploration of form and imagery, Coughlan engagedhumor as a means of navigating a fine line between absurd skepticism and profound meaning.

Gert Rappenecker, born in 1955 in Freiburg/Breisgau, workedwith a wide range of media and repeatedly createdprovocative interfaces between projections marked by nostalgic longing and the cool distance of industrially produced materials. At Stalke Galleri, Rappenecker presentedan installation related to his recent works. His practice consistently challengedviewers, as the use of diverse media resistedunambiguous interpretation. Rappenecker was concernedwith transforming “inanimate formalisms” into images charged with Romantic illusion, and with exploring the metaphysical dimensions and meanings of the Romantic, the soulful, and the poetic.

Janne Räisänen, born in 1971 in Pudasjärvi, Finland, and based in Helsinki, developedpaintings characterized by a rhythmic flow of figures and formations. At times, color was appliedin a pastose, relief-like manner, while other areas of the canvas remaineduntouched. His small-format works often focusedon detail, whereas his large-scale paintings were filledwith a multitude of details and UFO-like figures that viewers could allowtheir gaze to move across, grasp, and contemplate. In his exhibition at Stalke Galleri, Räisänen presentedseveral new paintings.

Exhibition views from the 2000 group show with Michael Coughlan, Gert Rappenecker, and Janne Räisänen at Stalke Galleri.

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