Lothar Götz: Pas de Trois

07.10.16 – 19.11.16

Lothar Götz 'Pas de Trois' installation view, photo by Andy Keate

(image: Lothar Götz 'Pas de Trois' installation view, photo by Andy Keate)

Domo Baal is delighted to present Lothar Götz's fourth solo exhibition in the gallery 'Pas de Trois', a response to Oskar Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet (1922).

Lothar Götz has designed a theatrical environment, incorporating wall works, new paintings on linen, screen–printed fabric and a trio of vitrines presenting a series of drawings on paper, all using a palette dominated by three colours: yellow, pink and black, which together create a stage set–like space inspired by Schlemmer. Presented like a sketch for a performance, the installation, through referencing this classic 1922 Bauhaus work, explores the relationship between architecture, dance and theatre and themes relating to desire, sexuality, identity and the abstract/human divide.

Götz's exhibition 'Pas de Trois' pays tribute in particular to three of Schlemmer's sketches 'Kostümentwürfe zum Triadischen Ballett' 1922 (Museum of Germanic Culture, Cambridge, Mass.)

Götz describes the work as his own 'dance in the head', inspired both by the Ballet and by Schlemmer himself, an artist to whom he has long felt close in spirit. While this is the first time Götz has referenced the 'Triadic Ballet' directly in his work, he first came across it when a student in Aachen (1983–88) – giving his first talk there about Schlemmer – at a time when he himself was not sure whether to become an actor, artist or a dancer. It was Schlemmer's work that underlined the possibilities to combine these interests through art.

Taking its cue from the formal, abstract language of Schlemmer's costumes, this work reverses the original translation of 2D representation into 3D form, taking it back into shape, plane and colour.

Götz sees this as a work that will only be complete when people enter into the exhibition space. As such it invites reflection upon the relationships between the abstract and the human, form and movement, and material and colour, and references not only the legacy of modernist ideas, but draws on other art historical and popular cultural references such as the baroque and gay club culture: spaces of desire and dream.

Positioned between the figure and the abstract, the exhibition will act like a dance between theatre, art and architecture.

'Pas de Trois' is accompanied by an essay written for this body of work by Sarah Kelleher (see link below), PhD Candidate in History of Art at the University College Cork (Government of Ireland Scholar, and CACSSS Postgraduate Scholar).

Forthcoming solo projects include 'Threesome' on Oskar Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet' at Petra Rinck Galerie in Düsseldorf opening in November, and Leeds City Art Gallery have commissioned a mural for their main staircase with the support of The Art Fund, Art Happens, scheduled to open in Autumn/Winter 2017.

Recent solo exhibitions include: 'Lothar Götz/Duncan Grant: The Russell Chantry' curated by Ashley Gallant at The Collection, Lincoln, with an accompanying publication and academic conference supported by Paul Mellon/Yale Fund. Recent group exhibitions include The Whitechapel Open, 2015, 'Colouring the Edge' 3812 Gallery, Hong Kong among many others. 'Composition for a Staircase' Götz's site–specific mural currently in situ, is an ongoing commission to mark the 10th anniversary of Pallant House Gallery's contemporary wing in the stairwell of the new wing in Chichester, supported by The Abbey Harris Mural Fund, and 'Composition with Yellow' is now at the Sammlung Philara, after its reopening in a new location in Düsseldorf–Flingern, Germany. Over the recent couple of years, Götz has also been invited to produce artist's prints: lithographs, stone lithographs, screen prints, and inkjet prints, all in small editions, in collaboration with Hole Editions in Newcastle and Worton Hall Studios/Coriander Studio in Isleworth, as well as a monograph with Ridinghouse, all works, prints, publications, further information and images are available from the gallery.

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