Paul Schwer - Ungeplant. Geplant.

The artist Paul Schwer, born in the Black Forest in 1951, skilfully manages to combine several art genres in his works. His art leaves the realm of the painting and unfolds into the room in the form of a sculpture. The Wolfgang Jahn Gallery in Munich presents a selection of these examples in the “UNGEPLANT. PLANNED“ (!UNPLANNED. PLANNED) exhibition.

The title of the exhibition refers to the special process of creating the sculptures and reflects the challenges Paul Schwer is confronted with when implementing his artistic concepts.

Inspired by a stay in Shanghai in 2006, Paul Schwer has used perspex and PETG as the main material for his sculptures and installations since then. First the artist paints or prints the material. Then these sheets are heated in an industrial oven and folded into the desired shape. This moulding process usually happens very quickly.  The material can only be processed once it reaches a certain temperature. If the material is too hot, it melts. If it is too cold, it breaks. The artist only has a few seconds to mould the sheets into the desired shape. Due to the speed of the moulding process, the final result is sometimes unpredictable, despite an artistic plan. The lightness of the sculptures and their organic shapes give the viewer the impression of a random creation.

The transparency of perspex motivated Paul Schwer to deal with the subject of light more intensively. For some time now, the artist has been integrating light tubes into his sculptures or playing with other light-reflecting materials. He recently manifested this development in a large installation (title: "Die Wärterin"), which was set up on the Steintorbrücke as part of the Braunschweig 2020 Lightparcours. This work also demonstrates the importance of the point of origin for the artist. His installations are often set up in unusual places, such as his work "Sonnendeck" (2019), which was created on the roof of the "Friends" hotel in Düsseldorf and curated by curator Wilko Austermann.

In 2018 a catalogue of the artist's work was published to accompany two extensive solo exhibitions at the Museum Goch and Museum Ratingen. Another exhibition by Paul Schwer is being opened at the Neue Galerie Gladbeck in November 2020. 

Dr. Zuzana Künzl