2001–2002 Hedwig Eberle spends in Chicago. Merely one year later, back in Germany, she is “in search of a new professor again” whom she eventually finds in Sean Scully at the Munich academy.
In Munich she sums up, renders, and specifies these experiences: the profound German Informell and the 'plane' America, the Berlin rigour of the early 60s and the inflammatory follies of Asger Jorn or Gruppe Spur, Klee, Kandinsky, or Jawlensky’s transposition of the real into pure colour and the colour-animated inner worlds of Scully or Günther Förg.
In 2010 this causes some sheets and small panels, quite gentle and intimate, close to the drawing hand. It seems to present a space with a perspective grid upon which an accumulation of unidentifiable things towers. The longer you watch these vivid strokes or look out for something recognisable, the clearer it gets that all which appears is nothing more than an array of gestures Hedwig Eberle aches to combine and unify. Harshly, the linear bundles set themselves apart from the planar and geometric grid. The peculiar volume consists of quivering lines, yet its corporeal constitution already alludes to the interspersing collision between abstraction and figuration.
Furthermore, the image-fields come not in one piece but are assembled from several, mutually adhered sheets. The fluid watercolour pours into the interstices and thickens in the grooves, whereupon the paper bends itself forming a grid-like structure after having dried up. This grid establishes a subtle geometric order which forms the basis of the paperwork’s frenzy of colours just as the notation system with its heights and depths, caesurae and intervals does in music. Hedwig Eberle combines this orderly support with her gestural outbreaks. Calmness and dynamics fall into one. The rigid linear scaffolding and the loose stimuli enhance each other reciprocally, for “structure without life is dead and life without structure is unperceivable”, as John Cage aptly put it. The picture’s geometry is the carrying pulse upon which the tones of colour can unfold themselves in the first place.
Moreover, the strokes of colour as counter-poles to the rational grid are human gestures that inscribe themselves into the non-objective pictorial order as the hand’s traces or immaterial sensations and experiences. Sometimes even as literal body-fragments reminding of magazine or fashion photographs. Bodies in most diverse situations and poises.
Text by Christian Malycha, from: Hedwig Eberle, exhibition catalogue Kunstverein Reutlingen, ed. Christian Malycha, Wasmuth Publishers, Tübingen / Berlin 2016
1977
geb. in München
lebt und arbeitet am Staffelsee
1999—2001
Universität der Künste, Berlin (Dr. Marwan)
2001—2006
Akademie der Bildenden Künste, München (Sean Scully)
2001—2002
Auslandsstipendium UIC, Chicago
2013
Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris
2014
Bayerischer Kunstförderpreis
2017
Kunstpreis der Akademie der Schönen Künste, München
Selected Solo Shows
2022
high noon – Jahn und Jahn, Lisboa
Feelings – Jahn und Jahn, Munich
2020
stay tuned (with Georg Fuchssteiner) – Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, Munich
2018
Hedwig Eberle. Malerei – Galerie Markt Bruckmühl, Bruckmühl (with Katharina von Werz)
2017
In den Kabinetten. Hedwig Eberle – Galerie Klaus Gerrit Friese, Berlin, in collaboration with Matthias Jahn
Neue Arbeiten auf Papier – Showroom Jahn und Jahn, Munich
2016
Part #3 (with Sophie von Hellermann) – Warhus Rittershaus, Cologne
Kunstverein Reutlingen, Reutlingen
2015
Hedwig Eberle – Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago
Vitamin C – Galerie Jahn Baaderstrasse, Munich
2014
Fenster – ph-projects, Produzentengalerie, Berlin
2013—2010
Like it is. Paris Portraits – Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago
Within – Galerie Jahn Baaderstrasse, Munich
High Time – Galerie Jahn Baaderstrasse, Munich
Selected Group Shows
2023
Das Gelbe Licht 6 Uhr Nachmittags: Remembering, envisioning, sensing landscape — Max Hetzler, Berlin
Inhaling Painting, Exhaling Imagination: The Munich Breath — Andreas Breunig, Hedwig Eberle, Jana Schröder —Jahn und Jahn, Munich
Ungekämmte Bilder. Kunst ab 1960 aus der Sammlung Herzog Franz von Bayern – Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
2022
post-un – Zeppelinstr. 51, Munich
2020
Your Mask (Part III: Don’t Forget Your Mask) – Jahn und Jahn, Munich Hedwig Eberle x Tahnee Godt – PS 2, Frizz23, Berlin
2019
Open Studios – Auenstraße, Munich
2018
40+10+1 – Jahn und Jahn, Munich
Deutschland ist keine Insel – Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn
2016
Axel Pairon Gallery, Knokke – Het Zoute
Favoriten III – Neue Kunst aus München, Lenbachhaus, Munich
Non Figuration – un regain d’intérêt? Centre d’art, Meymac
Aus der Mitte entspringt ein Kreis – Kunstarkaden Munich
Künstler der Galerie. Bildnis und Figur – Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich
2015
small sized – Atelieräume i.d. Auenstraße, Munich
Jahresgaben – Kunstverein München, Munich
Wies is (with Georg Fuchssteiner) – Städt. Galerie Cordonhaus, Cham
Sammlung Kunst nach 45, Lenbachhaus München, Munich
Palazzo Collapso – Hofgartenstraße 6A, Munich
Gastspiel – Schönewald Fine Arts, Düsseldorf
Bayerischer Kunstförderpreis 2014 – BBK München, Munich
2014
Jahresgaben – Kunstraum, Munich
O.N.P.A.P.E.R. – Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich
Salon der Gegenwart, Hamburg
Taylor Wessing, Munich
Wo ist hier? #:. Malerei und Gegenwart – Kunstverein Reutlingen, Reutlingen
Es ist schon alles gesagt, nur noch nicht von allen III – Galerie Jahn Baaderstrasse, Munich
2013
Wonderful Days – Phantom Projects Contemporary Marigny le Chatel
Kunst nach 45 – Lenbachhaus / Kunstbau, Munich
Das allerletzte Prof. Winkler Stipendium – Kunstverein Weiden, Weiden
MMMHCI – Produzentengalerie, Hamburg
2012
MMMHCI – Galerie Jahn Baaderstrasse, Munich
Editionen – Prince of Wales, Munich
Edition Karbit 2012 – Neue Galerie, Landshut
Edition Karbit 2012 – Atelier Hefele / Hottner, Munich
Opossum – Prince of Wales, Munich
EXPO CHICAGO 2012 – Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago
Auf Papier – Produzentengalerie, Hamburg
Café Grano – Artothek & Bildersaal, Munich
2011
Editionen – Prince of Wales, Munich
Edition Karbit – Atelier Hefele / Hottner, Munich
Panorama in Arquà Petrarca via Aganoor 75 curated by Giampaolo Babetto, Fred Jahn, Matthias Jahn, Padova
Perverted Minimalism Nr. 3 (with C. Djabbari, A. Friedel, F. Kaßner) – Woodmill Gallery, London
Ich dachte, man darf alles, theatrical set design (with Anna Mc Carthy) – Maximiliansforum, Munich
Es ist schon alles gesagt, nur noch nicht von allen – Galerie Jahn Baaderstrasse, Munich
2010
Group Show compiled by Sebastian Dacey – Knust x Kunz, Munich
Komm, wir gehen – Galerie Jahn Baaderstrasse, Munich
Violence & Beauty (with Anna McCarthy) – Galerie Gebrüder, Munich
Elegant wie Birnen und Kaffee – Galerie Seiler, Munich
Perverted Minimalism Nr. 2 (with C. Djabbari, A. Friedel, F. Kaßner, Atelier Anna Friedel) – Düsseldorf
Deutschlandpede – The Forgotten Bar, Berlin
Kiss of Life – Glue Factory, Glasgow