Experts in light heartedness: Wolfgang Harms (left) and Reinhard Schmid like it "different". © Photo: André Geare

Franken and Oberpfalz joint exhibition in the Stadttheater: there is plenty of mythology and irony in the art of Wolfgang Harms and Reinhard Schmid.

Ms. Luna hangs out with the Egyptian goddess Isis. This is easy to recognise because it has the typical attributes. The crescent moon, on the other hand, which is stretched in a blue night, remains mysterious, a face that could also be the man in the moon. And how is the relationship between Isis and the Moon, considering that he looks away from her, out into the blue?

"Something different" is the title of the exhibition by Wolfgang Harms and Reinhard Schmid, with which John Hammond's Art-Agency starts the new year at the Stadttheater. The title refers to the way the two work as well as their subjects. The Oberpfalz based Schmid, for example, has perfected the art of pencil drawing in conjunction with water colour behind glass, but also works with giclée, believing that artistic work on the computer is perfectly legitimate, even if he would never give up painting himself.

But different - at least in this century - is also the range of topics that the two artists use. Schmid loves the surreal, the fantastic, the surprising and the playful. Often the pictures are erotic, naked or half-naked female figures. Often the pictures are erotic, naked or half-naked female figures with high heels present themselves hovering. Does Schmid show women as a mere object of desire? Not necessarily: The "Erstbesteigung" plays with motifs from the fairy tale "Rapunzel", except that it is here a woman who rises to a tower that not only Sigmund Freud would interpret as a phallic symbol.

Full of symbolism, archetypes and figures of mythology is also Wolfgang Harms' work. The moon bird pops up again and again, as does a flute-playing Pan, who, in a blossom, pursues his musical day's work. Long-tailed birds in heraldic colour fly through a fauna of baroque fantasy, long clouds wind like living creatures around the surrounding rocks. Again and again Harms plays with the motif of the frame in the frame, as if to create another dimension.

What unites both artists is the lightness of their images. Each of them offers possibilities for interpretation, comparison with the models of mythology, with past and present styles of painting, for reflection on technical virtuosity. You can just as easily stand in front of it and immerse yourself in the bright colours of your very own inferno.

The frame refers to Danton's purgatory with an encircling humorous text, but the flames are at the same time the flowers of a cactus, in whose leaves dewdrops are strung like pearls. This is ambiguous, clever and excellent; but above all, it is a nice gimmick that you can appreciate as such.

The dark side of the creature illuminates Horst Sakulowski (left) and Kay Voigtmann with their refined works in the foyer of the Stadttheater Fürth. © Photo: Hans-Joachim Winckler

FÜRTH - "What do you believe?" This is a question that even Gretchen from Heinrich Faust could not answer. In the Stadttheater the request to the verbal oath of disclosure is now used as the title for a show with works by Horst Sakulowski and Kay Voigtmann. The exhibition organised by Art-Agency Hammond is reluctant to provide an answer. Instead, there are many new questions. Which in this case is decidedly better.

No one can accuse Horst Sakulowski of being trendy or even fashionable. The 73-year-old has brought with him graphite drawings to Fürth, and in doing so he reveals a mastery that is great and a trace confusing. His works, which are now exhibited in the foyer and in the upper circle of the Stadttheater, seem to come at the very first glance from another period. An impression that is quickly relativised. The analytical sharpness with which Sakulowski captures his objects is rooted entirely in the here and now.

The man, who comes from the Thuringian Saalfeld and lives in Weida, has a broad range: people and life. So the whole lot. His portraits are realistic and  unmasking  that the viewer feels a slight discomfort, because he inevitably has to handel his Modell like a surgeon.

Sakulowski studied in Leipzig at the Academy of Graphics and Book Art. In 1973, he attracted attention with his "portrait after duty", showing a woman who has obviously fallen asleep completely exhausted. No heroine of work and much less an example in the image world of the real existing GDR socialism. Sakulowski has always taken the freedom to show what he sees.

Finest craftsmanship

In direct neighborhood in the foyer are works by Kay Voigtmann  joined to the current show. The 48-year-old was born in Zeulenroda and lives in Gera, he studied like Sakulowski at the university of Leipzig. Bevor that, Voigtmann had to complete an unloved fine mechanics apprenticeship. Stayed, it seems, is his unmistakable sense for finest craftsmanship. His small-format works, currently being shown in Fürth, condense details in lavish diversity in a small format. Who takes part wants to have a magnifying glass on hand soon, in fear to overlook something.
 

Voigtmann is on the trail of a whole new species. The beings who act in his drawings seem as futile as the accidental appearances of a inkblot test. But their deformity deludes, and quite natural they work as a biped with hands and feet.
 

Really disturbing is the fact that they are easily recognisable because they reveal that they are human beings in all their craziness. Obviously, this is based on a certain degree of wittiness. But that seems not funny to me.