Oliver Bak (*1992) has become known for his historically inspired, vibrant painterly topographies, which stem from a deep engagement with the materials, procedures and influences of painting. His meticulous practice that foregrounds texture and an original use of color produces multilayered surfaces brimming with art historical and literary references. On Bak’s canvases, his aptitude for invocations of the medium’s history entwines with the themes, images and atmosphere of avant-garde poetry and myths of decadence and destruction. Interested in how the stories that have defined collective imagination develop, he delves into one particular narrative at a time, which provides the starting point for each of his bodies of work.
Songs before Sunrise
Oliver Bak, Eugène Carrière, Guglielmo Castelli, Enzo Cucchi, Enrico David, Leonor Fini, Anne Imhof, Conny Maier, Rosemarie Trockel, Andro Wekua, Alexej von Jawlensky
April 4–May 17, 2025
London
In his poem “Vereinsamt” (1884), Friedrich Nietzsche portrays a bleak winter landscape that can be read as a symbol of existential loneliness and metaphysical longing. The crows caw, the snow looms ominously, and man, feeling uprooted, remains isolated within himself. It is this Symbolist atmosphere that characterises the exhibition Songs before Sunrise at Sprüth Magers’ London gallery. The artists gathered here explore the tension between inner imagination, historical awareness, and the inescapability of our personal perspective on the world. The exhibition brings together works by Oliver Bak, Eugène Carrière, Guglielmo Castelli, Enzo Cucchi, Enrico David, Leonor Fini, Anne Imhof, Alexej von Jawlensky, Conny Maier, Rosemarie Trockel and Andro Wekua. Their works interweave past and present in a dreamlike visual language in which the boundaries between reality and imagination are dissolved.
Learn more
