„vorher-nachher“

Of landscape and parcours. The paintings of Bernard Ammerer

After "State of Mind" in 2012 and last year's "A Better Place" in Salzburg, Bernard Ammerer is presenting new works this summer in the exhibition "vorher - nachher". What has happened in his work in recent years? Young people still populate sober architecture or amuse themselves on empty highways. There are still these depressing snapshots of a nature that seems familiar to us but has long since become alien. At first glance, all this seems familiar and yet some things have changed.

Bernard Ammerer's landscapes show just how excellent an observer he is: they may look like atmospheric pictures from the Waldviertel or picturesque views of the Westautobahn, but on closer inspection they reveal themselves to be excitingly balanced color compositions.Ammerer's highway paintings are based on the classical structure of Dutch landscape painting. A horizon line lying deep below the center of the picture provides ample space for clouds and sky.In the lower third of the picture, a narrow strip of colorful landscape is literally squeezed in by the gray asphalt of the wide road.Radio masts and wind turbines serve as memorials to our increasing faith in technology.Ammerer's highway paintings consist of thesis and antithesis and behave accordingly; Ammerer already showed that this play with dualities is one of his artistic strategies in the 2012 Vienna exhibition 'State of Mind' in the series "Structure 1-3". Although Ammerer divides the landscape picture into foreground, middle ground and background, no spatial effect can unfold in "Structure", as the vertical grid achieved with adhesive strips prevents this.
Ammerer's highway paintings consist of thesis and antithesis and behave accordingly.

Ammerer already demonstrated that this play with dualities is one of his artistic strategies in the "Structure 1-3" series of paintings in the Vienna exhibition "State of Mind" in 2012.
Although Ammerer divides the landscape picture into foreground, middle ground and background, no spatial effect can unfold in "Structure", as the vertical grid achieved with adhesive strips prevents this.By means of this division, the two-dimensionality of the road surface and the three-dimensionality of the expanse of the landscape merge into an equivalent ornamental structure, which also occurs in a certain way in the large-format drawings of the series "Thank You Nature Fuck You Nature". The works in this series transfer the familiar motifs of the highway paintings into the medium of drawing.While this time the area of the sky remains empty, the road and the surrounding nature come to life in front of variously loose and dense condensations.What at first glance could be interpreted as hatching is revealed on closer inspection to be a lettering: "Thank you nature Fuck you nature". By means of this division, the two-dimensionality of the road surface and the three-dimensionality of the expanse of the landscape merge into an ornamental structure of equal value.

In a way, this also happens in the large-format drawings of the "Thank You Nature Fuck You Nature" series.
The works in this series transfer the familiar motifs of highway paintings into the medium of drawing. While this time the area of the sky remains empty, the road and the surrounding nature live in front of variously loose and strong condensations. What at first glance could be interpreted as hatching is revealed on closer inspection to be a lettering: "Thank you nature Fuck you nature". A more recent work in this series is particularly eye-catching due to the choice of motif. While rays of light push through thick layers of cloud, several serpentine bends can be seen in the valley surrounded by wooded hills and rocky mountain formations.

Used by Bernard Ammerer like a mantra in its repetitive accumulation, the interaction of two elements - thank vs. fuck - and their interdependence becomes abundantly clear.
However, Ammerer refrains from making an evaluative judgment and leaves open whether the possibility of shaping nature as man sees fit can be evaluated positively or negatively at all. Both value judgments are intertwined and cannot be viewed in isolation from each other. He thus leaves the judgment to the viewer, in whose eye, as is well known, lies the sovereignty of interpretation. Nevertheless, the predominant character of the drawing is retained in these works. The motif is not displaced by the writing; it is only brought to life by it. The artist allows what is depicted in nature to formally emerge as a designed written image only when he writes it down. He creates an image of the spoken and written word. By showing us that thought can become word, text and then image as writing, Bernard Ammerer demonstrates that it is we ourselves who, through our thoughts, lead to manifestations, be it word, deed or product.And this ultimately reveals our own co-responsibility: we can neither escape this co-responsibility by repressing it, as is also thematized in "Ghost", nor can we behave like foreign bodies in nature, as is expressed in "Wilderness Fantasies" and by no means  And this ultimately reveals our own co-responsibility.

We can neither evade this co-responsibility by repressing it, as is also thematized in "Ghost", nor can we behave like foreign bodies in nature, as is expressed in "Wilderness Fantasies", and in no way can we assume that we want to continue to dominate nature.

The times of naive romantic indulgence in the midst of a scenic stage are over. The solitary hiker's view of a deserted landscape is also a reminder of the increasing urban sprawl and domestication of nature. Wilderness becomes a search space. While C.D. Friedrich exposed his Monk by the Sea to the primal forces of nature, Ammerer's Wanderer presents nature as tamed, beaten and traumatic. Nevertheless, this need for romanticism remains timeless. In our search for the idyllic, we adapt to the circumstances and learn to appreciate the beauty of the sunrise on the highway. Thus, recognizing our own position within the structure of man and nature can lead us to "Temporara Malfunction", but can also lead us to rethink.

This involvement of the viewer as an accomplice becomes even clearer in some of the paintings featuring human figures. Some of these large-format paintings such as "Playground xxl", "Exploerer", "Freedom Fantasies" or "Eventually Satisfied" seem like invitations to mysterious urban games, which are located somewhere between geocaching and parkour. These "traceurs", as the parkour runners are also known, derive their subversive comedy from the environment in which they move: they run on or alongside highways, sometimes engage in races with trucks or meet up for a wild rendezvous. These paintings gain their dynamism from the daring framing. The horizon lines are often slanted, the bodies painfully cut in and out, the subjects presented in an unconventional way. Although Ammerer combines nature, architecture and people, the people involved seem to act without any reference to the space surrounding them.

What would happen if we all saw ourselves as "traceurs" is shown by the paintings in the "Deduction" series, which are full of graceful jumpers. Bernard Ammerer actually uses the stylistic device of the 'freeze frame', with which individual images are 'frozen' in the film. It seems as if the people running, jumping and dancing are stopped for a fraction of a second, only to continue their movements abruptly and with full force. Despite all the overlaps, there is no contact, yet there are numerous derivations that lead to the snapshot. Each seems to be next to himself, but whether he treats the other with respect or even ignores him in his actions is again left to the will of the viewer. There is no communication between the place and the person, nor between the people. Bernard Ammerer does not offer us a solution either. And this is precisely where the magic of these works lies, because despite all the drama of their content, they possess a balanced harmony, a compositional tension and a strange radiance. Ammerer shakes up our understanding of figurative representation as well as that of landscape.

In some of the more recent works in this series, such as "User Optimized", "Feldtest" or "Runner", there is no reference to nature whatsoever. In view of the endless white plain, one is reminded of the infinite 'White Cube' from George Lucas # classic 'THX 1138'. The heroes of this dystopian vision of the future from 1971 are sedated with psychotropic drugs and hologram broadcasts; Ammere's protagonists, on the other hand, are preoccupied with themselves. If you bounce that much, you don't need drugs. But even "Global Players" come to rest, become aware of their "backwound story" and seem strangely alien on a stage that is so clean that every human figure is perceived as a foreign body and slowly disappears from the picture. What remains are an empty stage, dense clouds and "Abendluft".

In the upright rectangular painting "Big Filter", the upper three quarters show a strongly moving cloud formation, while the lower quarter shows a white canvas. Viewed from a certain distance, it could be a sheet of ice or a concrete surface, but up close the contrast between the opulent clouds and the surface structure of the canvas is almost painfully palpable. At some point Bernard Ammerer became aware, it seems, that a bold step was needed to radicalize the antetic pictorial statement. In his earlier landscape paintings, he staged the interplay of nature and highway as a powerful juxtaposition of thesis and antithesis, which are interwoven. He pursued the same strategy with the opposing forces of figures in the space surrounding them. Now, however, the opposites have been removed, both counterparts become equal and at the same time they are reduced to absurdity. There is no longer any need for contrast; just like the figure, the concept of landscape has become obsolete and has dissolved. A new pictorial system abolishes the existing divisions.

What has fundamentally changed in Bernard Ammerer's work in recent years is aptly expressed in two of his large-format drawings of the portrait of a young man. Sometimes the eyes are closed, sometimes open. The inward gaze is contrasted with a watchful observation of the outside world. Both drawings appear light and airy, with light strokes and a grid-like structure. On closer inspection, the grid dissolves in favor of a drawn individual element, which forms the spatial depth of the depicted motif through accumulation and skillful placement. In the portrait with closed eyes, the concept of 'person' forms the basic element of the graphic reproduction; in the one with open eyes, it is a simple running stick figure. From the person to the stick figure. From the egocentric artist ego to the global sign of a networked connectedness with many, from the search for one's own identity to the recognition of being part of constant movement and change. From painting observer to painting traceur. Both drawings are self-portraits. Only by becoming aware of being part of a whole can one's own function, role and significance as an equal among equals and yet unique be questioned. Everything is connected. Nature and concrete, landscape and road converge. Man and environment merge into one another. Thesis and antithesis merge. In this synthesis, the future can unfold like a parkour. What will happen next with the painter and traceur Bernard Ammerer? We can be curious.

Harald Krämer