Norbert Bisky

Norbert Bisky (* 1970 in Leipzig, lives in Berlin) is among the best-known painters of his generation. He grew up in the former GDR, and spent the years from 1994 to 1999 studying painting with Georg Baselitz at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin. In 1999, he was that artist’s master pupil. His art has been shown in major art venues and museums for more than 15 years. The exhibition presented by the Museum Langmatt is Norbert Bisky’s first solo museum exhibition in Switzerland, featuring new artworks especially created for Baden. The starting point is provided by the history of the Brown family and of the Langmatt archive: an extensive accumulation of letters, diaries, and historical photographs.

Norbert Bisky’s images show over-bright representations predominantly of young men in the open air – a seeming heroic idyll which, however, becomes doubtful when one takes a second look. These seeming heroes in their self-confident poses dissolve into air and light. The naked torsos reflect the “body culture” and the vain self-love of our epoch, although the images do not convey moralising messages. We are left uncertain as to whether the persons represented are springing joyfully into the air, are amateur athletes self-confidently displaying their ambitions, or are instead victims of attacks, ripped abruptly out of their banal everyday life, their sudden end shockingly in view.

Filled with light and movement, the paintings by Norbert Bisky show interesting thematic parallels with the key motifs of French Impressionism, as represented by outstanding works by Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir et al. in the collection at the Museum Langmatt. Light and movement were the great themes of the early champions of modernism. They never ceased to be fascinated by the paradox of capturing such fleeting phenomena in the static medium of painting. The Norbert Bisky exhibition shows how strong these themes still are, albeit manifested in a significantly more existential and explosive manner.