Editor’s note: On the occasion of the publication of the second volume of Preparing for Darkness, the printed format of the ongoing exhibition series published by SELECTED ARTISTS EDITION, we are pleased to share the introductory essay “Quiet, Please” written by the editor Uwe Goldenstein. Since establishing SELECTED ARTISTS in 2010, Uwe Goldenstein has organized exhibitions that explore a new movement in contemporary painting—marked by the figure, melancholia, and darkness—introducing European artists to audiences in museums and institutions across Germany, Denmark, Turkey, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Hungary. Goldenstein worked as a researcher for the Rockefeller Foundation in New York and the Imperial War Museum in London. This second volume, edited together with Martin Dyma, features texts by Lucia Rossi, Uwe Goldenstein, Lukas Koval, and Petr Vanous, accompanied by selected paintings from artists such as Radu Belcin, Lars Elling, Ruprecht von Kaufmann, Daniel Pitín, Nicola Samorì, and Michaël Borremans.
To acquire the complete publication, readers may contact SELECTED ARTISTS EDITION via email ([email protected]) or purchase it through Amazon.
Despite the outward variety of textual forms, no comparable genre of criticism is plagued with such devastatingly uniform, formulaically superlative, pathetically loaded jargon. Its normative pull turns any arbitrarily constructed MDF-cube into an inevitable “space of immersion and vibrating stillness”; every shaky chalk mark on plaster is an “exemplary reflection of the construction and deconstruction of reality”; every monochrome autistic person is a “master of the unfathomable.” Such obvious intellectual trickery shines an unfortunate light not only on the art pedagogical study of gradients and the righteousness of its disciples, it also raises the suspicion that the rhetorical techniques of this field have completely divorced themselves from their concrete occasion.
Christian Demand about the Squalor of Art Criticism1
I propose a thought experiment: The word “art” simply doesn’t exist and one imagines all contemporary paintings without their ambiently staged gallery, fair, and museum environments. These paintings, without their attachment to such loaded nebulas of meaning—totally aimless without their artistic context—and without an (not only monetary, but nonetheless dubious) explanation infused by their “capitalist” staging, would have to prove themselves as “pure images.”
Mostly free-associated links between contemporary and art historically relevant painting, and the resulting transfer of meaning due to their common definition as “art,” amplify an already rampant chaos in its reception, while leaving the audience exponentially confused. One could describe this situation as the “post-modern trap of required vagueness,” because the boundless, pluralistic space of reception will always afford an opportunity for association as long as the two share “art” as a common source of meaning. In other words: There is an attempt to suffocate contingencies with matter-of-fact meaning by equating its existence with the (already meaningful) concept of art. In post-modern words: The term “art” magically and matter-of-factly reinstates the lost unity of a painting’s significance and meaning in a staged setting if only during a museum or art fair visit (and maybe with an extra glance at the gallery’s price list.) Keep in mind that a seemingly “modern,” often “cryptically reduced”—let’s say, “quite freely” crafted—contemporary painting, created without much technical knowledge and talent, can be interpreted only by associating it with the symbolic salad of a reference of a potentially already referenced reference (et cetera) of a past art historical style or oeuvre with a “secured” interpretation, while ascribing to it some desired arbitrary meaning. The artist (or curator) employs a certain work or style by “somehow” referencing it—formally, thematically, or both at the same time; it doesn’t matter. Any budding skepticism is then quashed by an architecturally superordinate mode of presentation. As a metaphorical exaggeration it is safe to say that today’s reception of art “uses” post-modernism without realizing that it inevitably fosters the desertion of (sensible) post-modern discourse (pluralism versus plurality) into a freely associated, maximally random, near quantum-mechanical realm of reception. The impossibility of a focused (i.e. comprehensible and factual) attribution of meaning to a contemporary painting due to the above described dilemma renders the term “art” useless and hollows it out into an endless and endlessly empty shell.
However, when a contemporary painting is considered interesting and worthwhile (i.e. meaningful) in and of itself—without the use of the above mentioned conditions—then it proves itself without having to think about the word “art” as a “relevant image.” The oil paint and the artist’s astonishing ability are so magnificent no one is forced to seek for some a priori meaning within the art historical framework.
The evocative atmosphere of such a painting speaks of a deep connection between image and observer, which—as is my thesis—is inevitably melancholic. (In this context, melancholia can also be understood as a feeling of protection against an increasingly affirmative, and thus meaningless, reality.) In a way, the observer takes leave of their environment (“outer world”) and delves ever-more deeply into their own realm of emotion and perception where formal and concrete (“figurative”) imagery guides their intimate encounter. This is how I’ve always interpreted the title of my exhibition series “Preparing for Darkness” (the first of which took place in Berlin in 2018) even if current affairs have infused it with a different meaning. (Perhaps yet another reason to escape current reality through paintings, such as in this publication, while finding space for contemplation in darkness and, with it, opportunities for a response to the current state of affairs.) Once immersed, dialogue with past (art historical) images occurs naturally and strengthens the emotional (factual) connection with the painting. The viscosity of oil paint, utilized with skill, is maybe our last silent wall of protection against the inescapable and perhaps total visual banalization of the world. This is a good place to quote Paul Virilios’s “Art as Far as the Eye Can See” (2007, p. 73): “What we’re seeing today is a culture without memory and without any sort of rules. The art of amnesia is part of an abrupt acceleration of reality. It belongs to the advent of (hurtling) stagnancy; the polarized inertia of the world in which the equalization of sensation freezes any form of representation.”
Melancholia, because of Virilio’s scenario, should perhaps be understood as a sort of authority of reception; a last opportunity for a (visually) understandable differentiation of contemporary art, as well as the ability to see it as a source of representation of our reality and a common “visually (evocative) intersection.” In light of the above-mentioned problems, maybe it would make sense to create a counter-reality in contemporary art that seeks to divorce itself from all these contradictions and ambiguities. At the 8th edition of the “Preparing for Darkness” exhibition at Museum Kampa, Prague, I summarized my thoughts as follows:
“It’s time for a divorce. A divorce from a type of contemporary art and especially painting that seems suspended in eternal post-modernity; one that, through a marked lack of artistic skill, can’t seem to reference anything but itself. This state of modern art can be experienced as a “pluriverse” of styles, citations, and allusions without a semblance of internal coherence. With my exhibition series “Preparing for Darkness”, I would like to pose a counter concept. The 8th edition of the series presents 13 artists—mostly painters—who stand as examples of a generation marked by an exceptional intellectual approach to artistic practices. The resulting profound examination of art history, paired with extraordinary artistic skill, can be seen as veritable and imminent, as they each, through their own unique style, offer a real, pictorially comprehensible and perceptible dialogue between past art and their own inscribed emotional world. What unites them is a resurrection of melancholy, which returns to highlight the magical in a viewing experience. In that sense, my chosen metaphor “Preparing for Darkness” is meant to describe both melancholy and the state of the world.”
Notes:
- Christian Demand, Die Beschämung der Philister. Wie die Kunst sich der Kritik entledigte [The Shaming of the Philistines. How Art Got Rid of Criticism], published by zu Klampen Verlag, Springe bei Hannover, 2003. ↩︎
Last Updated on July 18, 2025
- Published on
About the author:
Uwe Goldenstein is an art dealer, curator, and author. Since 2010, Goldenstein has shown his selection of European artists in museums and institutions in Germany, Denmark, Turkey, Switzerland, Czech Republic, The Netherlands and Hungary. Before establishing Selected Artists in 2010 the art historian Uwe Goldenstein worked as a researcher for the Rockefeller Foundation in New York and The Imperial War Museum in London. He has also worked as a lecturer, journalist, and author specialising in contemporary art.
