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Florian Witt – How to Welt als Mensch
Location: EMDE GALLERY - Mainz
Florian Witt – How to Welt als Mensch
Florian Witt expresses himself in a variety of different media: he does not simply use paper, canvas, wood and ceramics as a medium, but rather understands each as a material world in its own right. In the anniversary exhibition, for example, he presented a vase and a bowl with glaze drawings, the clay for which he dug out of the earth himself. This immediate proximity to the material shapes his entire artistic practice. The handmade plays a central role in this – not only as a technique, but above all as an attitude.
In short, nimble working phases, he captures fleeting impressions and ideas and translates them into visual worlds of recurring forms and signs that oscillate between drawn painting and painted drawing. His visual language combines playful elements, digital and analogue references, and sketch-like symbols that reflect his interest in human actions, emotions, and man-made structures – in other words, the forms of expression, actions, and signs through which we experience and shape our world as human beings. This is precisely what the title of the exhibition reflects.
OPENING: Friday, September 26, 2025, 5:30 – 8 pm
ARTIST TALK: Saturday, September 27, 2025, 3:30 pm (as part of the gallery's participation in the Mainz Art Biennale "...3xklingeln!" form September 26-28, 2025).
Gallery Crawl PART Mainz: Thursday, Oktober 30, 2025, 6 – 10 pm
An important source of inspiration for Florian Witt is computer games, but also tools and everyday man-made objects. Keyboards and hands appear repeatedly in his drawings – which, like the tools, can also be read as a direct reference to the aspect of the handmade – as do chimneys, spheres and objects that are reminiscent of architectural constructions or industrial structures or appear as basic forms of human-made objects. Alongside these are abstract areas of colour with interwoven lines or bizarre, figurative characters, some of which are supplemented by characters and symbols.
One focus of the exhibition is on the wooden constructions, which almost seem like little personalities: for example, the bikes or the flower vase – familiar objects that we encounter in everyday life, but which appear here in a reduced, playful, almost childlike form and thus radiate a certain individuality – and through their imperfection also refer to their human builders and origins.
Florian Witt continues his game in the image titles – this time with language. Some works are simply named after what they look like or what they embody, and are therefore rather soberly descriptive (e.g. "Pistole" (Pistol), "Schloss" (Scale) or "Außen Pink innen Gelb unten Blau" (Outside Pink Inside Yellow Bottom Blue), while other titles are full of puns and ambiguities and refer to deeper meanings (such as "Doppelnice", "Es geht ums Kerninteresse" or "Diskursive Schlüsse (Schüsse)").
The work "Touchstone" plays a special role in this exhibition. A touchstone is originally a small dark stone – usually slate – on which pieces of gold or silver were rubbed and then tested with acids to see if the metal was real. In other words, it is a tool for testing, for putting something to the test.
Florian has turned this into a small, painted wooden sculpture, which he himself has already "tested" several times, i.e. used – the visible signs of wear, which are part of the work, prove this. He has made ten further versions of this original, which he refers to as "copies". In fact, they are not copies in the classical sense, but independent objects made of wood, hand-painted, each with slight variations. Technically speaking, it is more of an edition (a small series, numbered, dated and signed). By deliberately referring to them as "copies", he raises questions about originality, repetition and authenticity. Unlike the "copies", the original has a special aura, the highest value, embodying the unique idea. At the same time, however, Florian Witt is also concerned with the democratisation of art – art should not be reserved only for those who can afford the original. By creating several versions, he opens it up to a wider audience. In this way, the ‘touchstone’ itself becomes the touchstone of an artistic idea, a reflection on value, originality and participation.
Florian Witt lives and works in Bremen. He studied fine art at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg with Thomas Hartmann, at the University of the Arts in Bremen with Stephan Baumkötter and Kathrin von Maltzahn, and as a master student of Ingo Vetter. His works have been shown in numerous exhibitions, including the group show "Game on" 2022 at Künstlerhaus Dortmund, and "What is that invisble thing your arm is resting on" at the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, Bremen in the summer of this year.
Künstler
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