ANSELM REYLE

Anselm Reyle (1970 – ) has studied at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Stuttgart and Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Karlsruhe. Since 2009 he is professor at Hochschule für Bildenden Künste, Hamburg.

The work of Anselm Reyle is intimately linked to Modernism, borrowing, critiquing, and reinventing its conventions all at once. Reyle’s abstract sculptures and paintings are made with fluorescent colors, found objects, and shiny common materials including foil, glitter, and mirrors. Inspired by early abstract painter Otto Freundlich and using techniques innovated by Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman, Reyle self-consciously revives aspects such as Hard-Edged stripes and the gestural brushstrokes of Abstract Expressionism. In 2011, Reyle made his affinity for popular culture explicit, designing accessories for fashion house Dior.

“I’m interested in something that has the quality of being a cliché,” says Reyle, “I attempt to grasp the crux and to reinscribe it so that it really gets moving again.”