July 12 to October 20, 2013
MKM Museum Küppersmühle for Modern Art

Eberhard Havekost is regarded as one of the great talents of contemporary German painting. The latest edition within the Akademos series, currently being staged for the eighth time in the Museum Küppersmühle and launched to present the works of distinguished professors at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, is now dedicated to the artist and some 100 of his works. The main focus is on his more recent paintings from the years 2008 to 2013. Alone 20, partly serial works, created ahead of the exhibition in 2013, are being unveiled here for the first time.

Working from photographic sources, Eberhard Havekost has turned away from the mere reproduction of reality in his paintings towards a re-construction of his images – independent of tradition and nature. His choice of motifs can encompass anything – man, nature, landscape, architecture, advertising posters, film sequences, etc. He manipulates his photographic source material using digital image-processing techniques, selecting cuttings, distorting, enlarging or minimizing the motifs, altering the colours and contrast. The resulting print-outs then serve him as a kind of modern sketch book for his paintings which are then “conventionally” transferred from the eye to the hand and onto the canvas using a brush and oil colours to reveal a fascinating painterly mastery and versatility.

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