Gotthard Graubner * (Erlbach, Vogtland, 1930–2013 Neuss, North Rhine-Westphalia) nanus, Farbraumkörper (color space body), 2003/04, titled, signed, dated on the reverse Graubner 2003/04, acrylic, oil on canvas over synthetic padding on canvas on stretcher, 30 x 31 x 5 cm, framed Confirmation of Authenticity: Galerie m, Bochum, signed by the artist Provenance: Galerie m, Bochum Private Collection North Rhine-Westphalia - acquired from the above Before monochrome backgrounds differing only in nuance Gotthard Graubner places floating abstract colour forms whose emphatically embodied colour he foregrounds in luminosity. With unfailing consistency and impressive intensity, he allows colour to become an autonomous force in his paintings and makes room for it. “The surface breathes,” explained Gotthard Graubner.1 Object-like bodies of colour-space are created. “The term Farbraumkörper was coined by the artist himself and is, undoubtedly, a term of validity. It designates a new phenomenon and is composed of the words “colour-space” and “body”, denoting fundamentally contradictory determinations. For colour-spaces are by their nature immeasurable, whereas bodies are measurable.”2 Since 1962, Graubner’s work has taken a step away from the embodiment tendency of colour matter towards pictorial forms in which absorbent materials such as sponges, cushions or rags play an important role. The absorbency of the surface is decisive for the effect of the paint. Objects were created for which the artist stretched the two-dimensional canvas over a thick layer of synthetic cotton wool on the stretcher frame. Graubner’s artistic volition to give colour its space is evident not only in the increase of the painting’s surface to the volume of the picture, but it manifests itself just as much in the texture of the paint itself. To achieve his goal, Graubner developed special painting methods and materials. Through the use of non-industrial paints and special binders, he achieves a matt application of paint and, moreover, the subtlety of several superimposed layers of paint. Analogous the viewer’s bodily experience, this technique enables the body of the painting to detach itself from the painterly context and transform into aesthetic objects that abandon two-dimensionality in favour of the sculptural. Graubner’s intense preoccupation with the relationship between colour and space results in a weightlessness and stillness that overlay his works. In the process, the viewer is led into an impenetrable, opaque aggregate state and enveloped by the materiality of the image.3 1 Exhibition catalogue Gotthard Graubner, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, 1980, p. 75 2 Max Imdahl, zur Kunst der Moderne, vol. 1, Frankfurt am Main 1996, p. 535 ff 3 Gotthard Graubner, Malerei, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne 1995, p. 10 ff “Colour is experienced through nuance” Gotthard Graubner