Helmut Dorner
Year of birth, place
1952
Germany
Role at the ZKM
- Artist of the Collection
Biography
Helmut Dorner was born in Gengenbach in 1952. He studied (1976-82) under Gerhard Richter at the Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf and, since 1989, he has taught at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Karlsruhe. In 1997 he was awarded the 'Prix Eliette von Karajan'. He lives in Karlsruhe.
Helmut Dorner's work embraces the interaction of sculpture and painting. Many of the sculptures he has made since the early 1980s have hollow shapes and openings. Similarly, in his work as a painter and draughtsman, he has taken a particular interest in spatial forms and objects. While his earlier work was, as a whole, characterized by its rough, open, brightly coloured surfaces, those of the 1980s and the early 1990s are notable for the shine of varnished or lacquered surfaces. Individual, simple shapes are often spread across the surface of monochrome colour fields to form regular patterns. In much of Dorner's work of the 1990s he has combined several layers of coolly gleaming transparent acrylic glass surfaces with gesturally applied traces of colour to create works that straddle the border between painting and sculpture.
Individual exhibition (selection)
1983 »Zeichnungen«, Galerie Rolf Ricke, Cologne
1984 Kunst- und Museumsverein Wuppertal
1985 Ulmer Museum, Ulm
1987 Galerie Grässlin-Ehrhardt, Frankfurt/M
1990 Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld; Kunsthalle Bern
1991 Carrée d'Art, Musée d'Art Contemporain, Nîmes
1994 »Under the surface«, Mercer Union Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, subsequently at Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver
1995 »The Santa Fe Drawings«, Laura Carpenter Fine Art, Santa Fe
1996 »durch«, Galerie Vera Munro, Hamburg; Galerie Karlheinz Meyer, Karlsruhe
1997/98 Max-Gandolph-Bibliothek, Salzburg, subsequently at Herbert von Karajan Centrum, Vienna
Group exhibition (selection)
1982 »Triumph, Skulpturen von Malern«, Galerie Rolf Ricke, Cologne
1984 »Ars viva - farbige Plastik«, Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe, subsequently at Kunstverein, Cologne; Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten, Marl
1989 I Triennial de Dibuix Joan Miró, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona
1990 »De pictura«, Galerie Bruges La Morte, Brügge; »Weitersehen«, Museum Haus Esters und Haus Lange, Krefeld
1992 »Geteilte Bilder - Das Diptychon in der neuen Kunst«, Museum Folkwang, Essen; Brooke Alexander Gallery, New York; documenta IX, Kassel
1995 »Das Abenteuer der Malerei«, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart
1996 »Nuevas Abstracciones«, Palacio Vélazquez, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, subsequently at Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Museu d'Art Contemporani, Barcelona, Pintura Alemanya, Sala Montcada de la Fundación »la Caixa«, Barcelona
1997 »Abstraction/Abstractions - Géométries Provisoires«, Musée d'Art Moderne, Saint-Etienne
[Frauke Syamken, 1997]
Helmut Dorner's work embraces the interaction of sculpture and painting. Many of the sculptures he has made since the early 1980s have hollow shapes and openings. Similarly, in his work as a painter and draughtsman, he has taken a particular interest in spatial forms and objects. While his earlier work was, as a whole, characterized by its rough, open, brightly coloured surfaces, those of the 1980s and the early 1990s are notable for the shine of varnished or lacquered surfaces. Individual, simple shapes are often spread across the surface of monochrome colour fields to form regular patterns. In much of Dorner's work of the 1990s he has combined several layers of coolly gleaming transparent acrylic glass surfaces with gesturally applied traces of colour to create works that straddle the border between painting and sculpture.
Individual exhibition (selection)
1983 »Zeichnungen«, Galerie Rolf Ricke, Cologne
1984 Kunst- und Museumsverein Wuppertal
1985 Ulmer Museum, Ulm
1987 Galerie Grässlin-Ehrhardt, Frankfurt/M
1990 Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld; Kunsthalle Bern
1991 Carrée d'Art, Musée d'Art Contemporain, Nîmes
1994 »Under the surface«, Mercer Union Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, subsequently at Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver
1995 »The Santa Fe Drawings«, Laura Carpenter Fine Art, Santa Fe
1996 »durch«, Galerie Vera Munro, Hamburg; Galerie Karlheinz Meyer, Karlsruhe
1997/98 Max-Gandolph-Bibliothek, Salzburg, subsequently at Herbert von Karajan Centrum, Vienna
Group exhibition (selection)
1982 »Triumph, Skulpturen von Malern«, Galerie Rolf Ricke, Cologne
1984 »Ars viva - farbige Plastik«, Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe, subsequently at Kunstverein, Cologne; Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten, Marl
1989 I Triennial de Dibuix Joan Miró, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona
1990 »De pictura«, Galerie Bruges La Morte, Brügge; »Weitersehen«, Museum Haus Esters und Haus Lange, Krefeld
1992 »Geteilte Bilder - Das Diptychon in der neuen Kunst«, Museum Folkwang, Essen; Brooke Alexander Gallery, New York; documenta IX, Kassel
1995 »Das Abenteuer der Malerei«, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart
1996 »Nuevas Abstracciones«, Palacio Vélazquez, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, subsequently at Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Museu d'Art Contemporani, Barcelona, Pintura Alemanya, Sala Montcada de la Fundación »la Caixa«, Barcelona
1997 »Abstraction/Abstractions - Géométries Provisoires«, Musée d'Art Moderne, Saint-Etienne
[Frauke Syamken, 1997]