(i)
When viewing those paintings categorized as abstract, I used to feel a resisting attempt to cover up and hide out in my inner world. Inability to speak or lack of action, as I consciously perceived, emerged as a result of consciousness and self-observation. As for me, all of this epitomizes a sense of uneasiness that I have always tried to escape from. What’s significant is that such discomfort vanishes unexpectedly.
The moment the discomfort vanishes I happened to see the image of Enrico Bach’s RDARMX based on The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt. What occurred to me was the portrait of Venus from the frame of a mock-up of Botticelli’s Venus and Mars, which was sliced out by John Berger in the TV series Ways of Seeing. Also, it reminded me of the instant at which a square of the blue wall was exposed behind the rectangular cut-out.
John Berger’s focus was on the narrative of how the mock-up of Venus was seen at present as it was out of the scenario of the original painting. In terms of visual experience, however, the most striking moment of the scene was the rectangular checkbox with a sense of spatial depth. The in-depth space being composed of the sliced-out canvas and the blue wall was what was more eye-catching. It had nothing to do with the goddess of love, the god of war or the angels. What remained simply became the subplot and played a minor role of the rectangular box, all of which merely functioned as a highlighting reminder of the existence of the abstract space enclosed in the frame.
“I’m not interested in the objectivity and narrative of the paintings. What interests me is light, shade, space, colour and composition. It is precisely the resistance to the subject of painting together with my interest that allows me to prioritize the non-representational abstract representation. My painting is by no means about nature or in the form of nature, which is a grotesque world jointly consisting of man-made shapes and colours,” Bach explained.
What Enrico Bach’s RDARMX reminds me is also a self-prompt that has sprouted faintly yet less self-evidently, that is, there is a defining difference of the pre-set question between the ways of seeing of a painter and a critic studying visual culture. The way he saw Rembrandt’s paintings was by no means from a perspective of the functionality of painting. What he devotedly cares and is concerned about is the issues in painting as a practice. Seeing the paintings where he applied the capital letters as a means of description in the titles, I abandoned the way of seeing that was framed in the socio-cultural context. Instead, I saw the place, the time, the object, and the presence created by the painter using unobstructed light, shade, space, colour, and composition.
(ii)
Born in 1980 in Leipzig of Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic), Enrico Bach moved to southern Germany with his parents at the age of nine. Indeed, such an experience enabled the artist to actively engage with the terms such as “Berlin Wall” and “Leipzig School” as he had used to the way of seeing in which the “grand” relationship between artist’s surviving experiences and artistic expressions. In some of the media reports, the artist has attempted to imply the artistic, sociological logic as a reminder behind the association of the painter’s painting and the two widespread terms. The idea was to fulfil the speculations of the visual cultural framework and narrative paradigm predetermined by the world of contemporary Chinese art. I, as usual, am somewhat alert to such tacit implications and determined wishful thinking.
It is the very description of Enrico Bach without presetting that allowed me to feel relieved. Speaking of moving from East Germany to West Germany, Bach said, “As a child, I didn’t know so much about the difference between East Germany and West Germany. I had a happy and satisfying childhood and I had never felt regrets. When you didn’t know so much about it, you would not talk about it as you missed it”. In terms of the Leipzig School, he continued, “I didn’t know the Leipzig School as a child either. When I started studying art in Karlsruhe in 2005, the New Leipzig School and a new generation of artists were quite much-celebrated, such as Neo Rauch (1960- ). As far as I am concerned, I was not very much interested in those paintings, that’s why I have not been influenced”.
Living in Germany and considering himself “I live in Germany and I grew up with the western view of pictures and art and was influenced by it.”, Enrico Bach, without hesitation, listed Rembrandt (1606-1669), Picasso (1881-1973), followed by Baselitz (1938-) and (1940-) when referring to the history of art. These are all artists who have fascinated him in their own way. “Rembrand with its light and shadow and the depth in the paintings. Baselitz for the impudence in painting and today for the power in the pictures. Picasso because of the energy and variety of forms in his painting. And Knoebel for the reduction and the redesign of what painting can be. ”
Enrico Bach’s account of the Leipzig School, Rembrandt, Picasso, Baselitz, and Knoebel represents an artist’s way of seeing a painting of their own, such a description is what “I” truly see. His description has nothing to do with either the titles of the painters in history and reality or the much-questioned “rigid yet lively” qualities of painting in the contemporary artistic narratives. Enrico Bach observed, “First and foremost I paint (still), because I enjoy it and because I do not want to do anything else. It also has something to do with addiction. I need contact with the studio and the painting and find myself every day in search of a masterpiece. That drives me. Moreover, painting is one of the few professional opportunities to express yourself freely without being subject to an assignment.”.
Bach, who continues to think of painting as his profession, believes that “I think it's difficult and easy at the same time to do painting today. Difficult, because the medium of painting is already very old and has a long tradition. Everything has already been done and the wheel can not be reinvented.”. Just as the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun. “But painting can also be easy, since everything is allowed today. There are no more taboos. And yet, again and again in the so-called death-plagued painting, something new and thus unprecedented creation is created.
Painting can be traditionally a painting on a painting medium such as canvas, wood, paper. However, painting can also be found on a wall, both outside and inside, paintings are made with different textiles or other materials created, new media become painting and installation become pictures. These are painting jobs, which, in my opinion, were still seen differently fifty years ago”.
Indeed, apart from the spectators who aim to come up with some world-enlightening words in the contemporary art scene, there are artists like Enrico Bach who is conscious of the possibilities of painting and has evident self-confidence. Thanks to the artists who continue to devote to the practice of painting, it is possible to maintain the functionality of painting which serves as a statement of shaping contemporary art.
(iii)
The titles of Enrico Bach’s paintings are numbers to be archived, which suggest a refusal to be poetically interpreted. Regarding the way of naming his work, he explained, the letters in the titles are initials, which represent the series and images, for example, RSW stands for Raster-Serie-Weiß. Rather than interpreting, such is simply a description. The use of acronyms, apart from being part of the enumerating, has removed any possibly leftover information. Such titles, indeed, are just numbers rather than codewords. However, in terms of my way of seeing, these titles serve as a relief, seeing is all I do. While gazing at each other in the encounter with the painting, the perspective of seeing and distance are being adjusted at the same time.
Not able to remember when he first saw Imi Knoebel’s paintings, Enrico Bach, however, still remembered that he found it very impressive how he broke out of the classic rectangular shape of the painting ground.At the same time, Bach understands the recurring rectangles in his paintings this way, “The rectangle is a simple shape. It meets us everywhere in everyday life and serves us to organize, to divide and arrange things. This form is one of the simplest forms to create a composition. The rectangle is also a geometric shape and has its own content. But I'm interested in shapes in general. Lately, I have included many more different shapes in my paintings and have become more interested in surfaces.”.
The interest in the interface in addition to the influence of transnational life experience of today play a leading role in Enrico Bach’s art. The artist pointed out, “Like the understanding and reading of surfaces of smartphones and computers. These are usually divided into rectangles and windows and describe what lies in front and behind.”. At Enrico Bach’s recent solo exhibition “Deep Cover” held at Pifo Gallery, we can see some walls in addition to the paintings, which are created in combination with the paintings.“In terms of content, I deal with the obstruction of the pictorial space or the field of view as described above and keep it open or conceal what lies behind it.” he added.
Unlike the titles of the paintings in isolation from meanings, the titles of the exhibitions proposed by Enrico Bach himself reserve an open space where expressions and interpretations are possible. Take his first solo show in China, i.e. “With Ifs and Buts” at PIFO Gallery three years ago and the recent “Deep Cover” as examples. “With Ifs and Buts” extracted from German idiom “without ifs and buts” aimed to“to express the possibilities, considerations, and doubts that are stuck in each painting.” and Enrico Bach’s determined self-confidence about the possibilities of a painting hidden in the midst of ambiguity when being on the horns of a dilemma. Meanwhile, the “Deep Cover” indicates the potential intervention of painting in space in terms of the issues of openness and concealment within the snorkeling-like spectacle.
Without subtlety, as a painter, Enrico Bach’s awareness of issues of painting allows me, a viewer, to set up a new viewing perspective with another sort of possibility and potential in paintings.
