Alfredo Barsuglia in the Nicole Gnesa Gallery in Munich: Monkeys like us

The Munich gallery Nicole Gnesa shows the Austrian artist Alfredo Barsuglia.

Works that challenge.

He has already irritated Munich.

During a Corona lockdown, the Austrian artist Alfredo Barsuglia installed a fountain in the Nicole Gnesa gallery;

asked his hostess to leave her exhibition space and work to themselves, the door wide open to anyone who might come.

And it happened: nothing.

In the sense of: no vandalism, no blind destructiveness.

Instead, in times when closeness was forbidden, this place became a place of power.

People came and sat down, enjoying the quiet, some read, one knitted.

Let the place and the art work their magic.

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Place of power: During a corona lockdown, the Nicole Gnesa gallery in Munich was open at all times during the day, without staff, unprotected.

Everyone could sit down at the fountain installed by Alfredo Barsuglia.

© Gallery Nicole Gnesa

Barsuglia must have been impressed by Nicole Gnesa's courage to embark on this risk with an open, unprotected gallery.

Now he is exhibiting with her again.

The man is asked;

is often presented in museums in his homeland and commissioned for works in public space.

He is currently creating an installation for the Salzkammergut, which will be the European Capital of Culture in 2024.

His origin lies in painting.

And he now presents himself primarily with paintings in the gallery on Kolosseumstraße.

And you always have to get very close because you can hardly believe it at first glance.

The fingers, for example, which appear to be sticking out of the wall in black and white, are not drawn with a pencil but with watercolor paints.

Here you can see the tremendous artistry of Barsuglia, who studied painting and graphics at the University of Applied Arts and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.

His goal even then: that the viewer can never feel completely safe;

he wants to challenge her, make her think.

Alfredo Barsuglias cleverly irritates

The owl, for example, which is now hanging to the left of the entrance.

His name is Julia.

Does the animal have a name?

Barsuglia: "Every animal has a name." So Julia looks at us with her skeptical owlet look, you would love to stroke the feathers, the artist, born in Graz in 1980, has brought them to life so delicately here on primed and sanded canvas.

A perfect reflection of nature.

But despite all the flawless craftsmanship, perfection is not Barsuglia's goal.

Because perfect is beautiful, but perfect tells us nothing.

That's why he inserted three letters into Julia's body – without a template, instead with an enviably steady hand: “ffe”.

Like a code that you would like to decipher - but you can google as much as you want, the internet won't help us here.

In this way, the artist throws us back into the dilemma of modern man: because knowledge is always available, we stop remembering things;

and actually penetrating them.

Julia seems to be looking at us almost mockingly and having fun with us moon flyers and smartphone users who no longer understand what lies ahead.

Having so little idea of ​​the nature that surrounds us.

"ffe" - maybe only the A is missing?