Volker Rossenbach - Birdland-Gambit

Volker Rossenbach’s Narrativism, between art-historical references and a penchant for interdisciplinary expression

There are life paths and attitudes among some contemporary artists that lead to the understanding that the figurative approach does not necessarily have to be separated from the literary, philosophical, historical, and sociological approaches, so that they can merge to offer an unusual perspective precisely because of their indeterminacy regarding placement in a single field. Not only that: there are artists who also add the absolutely contemporary need to measure themselves with less traditional, less orthodox means — if one wishes to call them that — which thus differ clearly from the resulting painterly style and yet are incredibly harmonious and located in an increasingly indispensable modernity. The protagonist of today is all of this and much more, for he draws on his deep knowledge of art history and literature and blends both, incorporating the intuitions and theories of the avant-garde of the 20th century.

In the first decades of the 20th century, culture society had to reluctantly witness how all convictions, certainties, and rules that had shaped art up to then began to adopt a desecrating, sarcastic, and polemical stance toward the art system of that time, in a movement called Dadaism that began in Switzerland and then spread to other European countries. Besides the resulting visual representation, which relied on the ironic transformation of any object into a work of art, the innovation lay in the introduction or rather the integration of other disciplines into the experimentation, which authors such as Tristan Tzara, Hans Arp, and Marcel Duchamp considered crucial for the entire movement. Theater, photography, collage, and photomontage were the synergies that the Dadaists anticipated and later the Bauhaus, the great and revolutionary school of applied arts of the Weimar Republic in Germany, built upon, which did not limit itself to using the intuitions of its Swiss predecessors but decided to also introduce many other techniques that could be connected with art, as another foundational movement that had emerged shortly before, the Arts and Crafts, had already anticipated. As times changed and society underwent a fundamental transformation, it became necessary for the school director Walter Gropius to incorporate subjects such as architecture, theater, graphics, advertising, weaving, metalworking, and many other disciplines into the curriculum, disciplines that were considered crafts but existed in complete harmony with art in its highest and most comprehensive sense. Although Bauhaus formally oriented itself toward De Stijl, its path emphasized the fusion of different forms of expression, through which it was possible to connect and introduce those innovations that, over the years and especially after the end of World War II, began to take hold. One of them was computer art, created by a mathematician and a philosopher, Ben Laposki and Manfred Frank, who used light waves with oscilloscopes to generate undefined and abstract artistic lines; these experiments were only the beginning of a digital art that initially faced obstacles and was considered a inferior medium of expression, as it was accessible to everyone. Today, however, it has perfected itself and requires special craftsmanship. It finds numerous applications, from art to graphics and advertising to multimedia installations, especially for artists who like to experiment and fuse different techniques, and has earned its place at the forefront of the contemporary art world. The German artist Volker Rossenbach has had a career path that has always brought him into contact with innovations, but also with his intellectual and cultural vitality, thanks to which he has engaged not only with art but also with literature and history — areas that have always been interwoven with a classical, almost Renaissance-like pictorial language, yet one that makes use of digital technology. The infinite possibilities that digital art now offers and the need for a return to a classical and traditional aesthetics — in other words, in a sense, in opposition to the beginnings of its practical application — shape his visual style, which emerges from a fusion of drawings and photographs enriched with filters and textures, subsequently scanned and assembled into an image with Photoshop and Illustrator; which he then engages with manually using acrylic paints, felt-tip pens, and chalk to give the work its final appearance. His most recent works are inspired by motifs from international literature with strong narrative character, which he mixes with quotes and references to masterpieces of art history, with his ironic perspective and his interpretation connected to reflections on current topics not missing. It almost seems as if Volker Rossenbach wants to emphasize that the past, despite outward differences, is ultimately not so far from the present. This may be the deeper meaning of the designation he has chosen for his art, for his painterly approach that arises from the latest mixed technique, namely narrativeism, in which the artistic tradition studied over the years becomes the interpreter of references to philosophically-narrative thoughts of authors from around the world, insofar as they are in harmony with the moment of execution and at the same time trace back to the sociological and personal observation of a world that seems to be moving too quickly to pause and appreciate the beauty of savoring a single moment. This line of thought runs through the work “Mystworld” (Self-Portrait on the Myst Island), in which Volker Rossenbach positions himself with his back to the camera in a setting reminiscent of the famous work by the German Romantic Caspar David Friedrich with the title “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog”; Unlike the 19th-century artist, this work is here enriched with metaphysical details that symbolize that everything, even when clearly visible and not shrouded in fog, can still represent an inexplicable secret unless one has the patience and the will to pause and look deeper than superficial perception. The jacket recalls the overlays of emptiness and fullness in René Magritte’s surrealist visions, while bottom right one of Giorgio De Chirico’s figures can be seen; the work essentially presents a synthesis of Volker Rossenbach’s life, a long journey through art history and the most captivating literary works, from which the message of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in “The Little Prince” emerges, namely that the essential is invisible to the eye. In the work “The Forest of Magical Beings” he combines the vivid beauty of nature with the presence of tropical animals such as parrots, toucans, and chameleons, and centers the image of a painter who, because of her ability to live with pain, but also because she has profoundly shaped the art history of the 20th century, is regarded as an almost supernatural heroine — I am of course talking about Frida Kahlo. Next to her, in a futuristic world, the author adds a humanoid woman, a projection of what tomorrow’s humanity might look like in a context where the liveliness of nature may be diminished due to today’s lack of respect for it. The magic referenced by the title thus traverses time, surpasses boundaries, and enables a cross-cutting perspective that can serve as a warning to pay more attention to the future while always keeping in view the harmony and vitality of the past. “Siddharta” has, on the other hand, a double meaning, for on the one hand it represents a visual synthesis by Volker Rossenbach of Hermann Hesse’s masterpiece to which the title refers, and on the other hand it expresses his deeper meaning, for which the little novel became famous at the time of its publication, namely the search for oneself, the longing to find oneself, the pride of the individual against the world and history, in a time immediately after World War II when every certainty and every point of reference had been lost due to the horrors of the Nazis. In the work, the entire mystical and oriental atmosphere that characterizes the novel is expressed, as well as the symbolism of freedom and the reference to the true, highest, and spiritual essence on which Siddhartha’s insight and ability to self-analyze rested; The mystical aspect of the figure at the center of the painting is made even more striking by the use of vivid, rich colors, which can be traced back to hippie philosophy, due to which the book was often seen as a symbol of the values of a movement that changed the world. Volker Rossenbach completed his studies in Graphic Design in 1969 and, after working as an Art Director and Creative Director for international agencies such as Leo Burnett or Grey, founded his own agency, E/B/D in Düsseldorf, and his works, including the major Coca-Cola campaign from 1976 to 1978, were awarded multiple times. From the more experimental works of his early years, he has now moved to a more figurative and traditional perspective, while always maintaining his tendency to use and mix innovative and unconventional means of expression; he can point to participation in group and solo exhibitions in Germany.

Text: Marta Lock, Italy. Art historian and curator.

This work, Birdland-Gambit, is from my series of portraits with a bird. The representation is based on a drawing from a living model. The painting is enclosed by an oak wooden frame.

My paintings are in the following countries: USA (New York, Phoenix, Miami, Springfield, Santa Barbara), Canada (Montreal), Singapore, Taipei, Finland, Italy, France, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Austria, Luxembourg and many places in Germany.

National and international exhibitions.
Further information at rossenbachart on the net