Siegmund Schneider

In the organizer's words:

Gallery 149 presents from 07.09. to 04.10.2024:

Siegmund Schneider "Iconic Pictures"
Painting + drawing

"I never wanted to create topical images, but of course my paintings should relate to the reality of people's lives. My art deals a lot with the themes of power and violence, but also with loneliness and isolation, with remembering and forgetting.

Even before Corona - and especially before the start of the war in Ukraine - I was aware that the world as we know it was collapsing.

The climate catastrophe, the worldwide rise of undemocratic forces, new technologies, overpopulation, globalization, poverty migration and the threat of war have massively changed our reality and will continue to do so. Art, religion and science have the same roots: the search for knowledge, the attempt to influence the present and the future - and included in this - the fear of death.

In cave painting, art, religion and science were still one, united in one and the same act. Over time, religion has proved useless as an attempt to influence the future. Nevertheless, it is useful to remember the beginnings of art and what its purpose was: the attempt to influence life and death.

Another aspect of my art is the unification of painting/drawing, sculpture and architecture, the combination of representational and non-representational painting, before form, color and structure.

We need art that is intelligent, emotional, meditative, ecstatic, emphatic and responsible. Painting or its sister, drawing, can still fulfill this today. After all, 30,000 years or more is no age for a successful medium."

Author: Siegmund Schneider