Franz Stein
The Line We Cross
An unwavering line, like a tightrope, is walked when journeying to understand the work of Franz Stein. He creates a boundary between inner and outer, public and private, where this boundary is the line pulled taut, and if you fall on either side at any point when interpreting his work – well, you've fallen. Stein invites you to walk across his thought space and judge for yourself if he is painting the clouds above our heads, or a mood at the edge of perception. In the perfect, compact lines and monochrome shades of the etching Dachboden (2018) we see wood floors, beams, and the countless panels that protect the rafter and rake of a roof – and we wonder if this is an imagined space, or an image taken from life. Certainly the scene is believable, with its sofa so sadly crumpled, the upturned mattress, and the discarded wardrobe hiding in a corner. These domestic elements seem to move beyond any old attic, and also tread the line that has on its other side, the inner working of the mind. The question is raised again when looking at the quite different painting, Panama (2020), where a milk white mist forms with fragments of handwriting scored upon the surface. We wonder where we look – out from a frosted window, or right into the mind’s eye.
Inner and Outer
Let’s imagine there is a storm in the mind of an artist, but the eye of the storm is silent. The longer the silence is held, the longer an artist can keep still even amidst the raging, the greater the depth of their creative output. Franz Stein passes the chaos, deftly occupying the epicentre – displacing the energy from that whirlwind into Quasy (2020), where we are taken onto a grey mountainside, abject and abstract, the moon creeping under a sky of iron. There a stick figure huddles as if to seek shelter from that terrible outward world, looking inwards, pensive, thinking. His body reminds one of an ancient Norse rune, with a resemblance to the ‘O’ sound, the one meaning ‘lineage’, or perhaps another timeless sound that resembles this figure less clearly, though the meaning is less confused: ‘The Journey’ This figure could be the artist, or ourselves, the inside world, or a representation of the outside; but wherever we fall, we find the skill with which Stein operates is unfathomable.
Text by Jonathan Ferguson
Biography Franz Stein
born 1989 in Bayreuth, Germany
Education
since 2016 Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Germany / Painting and Graphics, Class Prof. Gregor Hildebrandt (since 2018), Class Prof. Matthias Wähner (2016/2019)
Exhibitions (selection)
2020
Boxenstop II, Pinakothek der Moderne München, Munich, Germany
Annual Exhibition Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Class Prof. Gregor Hildebrandt, MUCCA München, Munich, Germany
Der River, Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei, Leipzig, Germany
off the cuff, Galerie Kunst66 München, Munich, Germany
2019
respond, Galerie Belleparais München, Munich, Germany
CHACUN À SON GOÛT, Annual Exhibition Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Class Prof. Gregor Hildebrandt, Munich, Germany
2018
das kleine format, Kunstverein Aichach, Munich, Germany
weiß, Annual Exhibition Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Class Hildebrandt, Munich, Germany
This is the last room., Annual Exhibition Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Class Wähner, Munich, Germany
ABHAENGEN, Annual Exhibition Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Germany
2017
Kopfkino, Heise Kunstpreis Exhibition, Dessau, Germany
Franz Stein in his studio.
Works by Franz Stein
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sold
In rub al khalil
2021 / Styrodur / 56 x 645 cm / 22.0 x 253.9 in
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Odysseus kam nicht zurück
2021 / Acrylic on canvas / 180 x 150 cm / 70.9 x 59.1 in
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Als es ist
2021 / Acrylic on canvas / 115 x 110 cm / 45.3 x 43.3 in
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Circus
2021 / Acrylic on canvas / 120 x 95 cm / 47.2 x 37.4 in
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Verzückung
2021 / Acrylic on canvas / 120 x 95 cm / 47.2 x 37.4 in
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Alles andere bleibt
2021 / Styrodur and oil color / 69.5 x 64 cm / 27.4 x 25.2 in
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Scherbengericht
2020 / Lithography on handmade paper / 180 x 180 cm / 70.9 x 70.9 in
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Treppenhaus
2019 / Etching / 44 x 34 cm / 17.3 x 13.4 in (framed)
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Interieur III
2018 / Silkscreen / 119 x 133 cm / 46.9 x 52.4 in (framed)
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Interieur II
2018 / Silkscreen / 95 x 123 cm / 37.4 x 48.4 in (framed)
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Hinterhof
2018 / Etching / 47 x 54.5 cm / 18.5 x 21.5 in (framed)
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Dachterrasse
2018 / Etching / 24.5 x 34.5 cm / 9.6 x 13.6 in (framed)
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Touch
2019 / Acrylic, paper on canvas / 75 x 110 cm / 29.5 x 43.3 in
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So artsy
2020 / Acrylic, chalk on canvas / 140 x 140 cm / 55.1 x 55.1 in
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Quasy
2020 / Acrylic, chalk on canvas / 150 x 110 cm / 59.1 x 43.3 in
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Panama
2020 / Acrylic on canvas / 110 x 75 cm / 43.3 x 29.5 in
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Dem Himmel näher
2020 / Acrylic, chalk on canvas / 220 x 240 cm / 86.6 x 94.5 in
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Dachboden
2018 / Etching on handmade paper / 72.5 x 66 cm / 28.5 x 26.0 in (framed)