Galli

NoguerasBlanchard is very pleased to announce the first exhibition in Spain by German artist Galli (1944, Heusweiler).

Establishing herself amidst the tumultuous and hedonistic spirit of the West Berlin art scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Galli, like many of her contemporaries, rejected the austere visual language of conceptual art and embraced narrative forms and subjective experience. In that moment the West Berlin art scene caused an international sensation with a new and violent form of mainly figurative painting. Galli carved out her own niche amidst the masculine transgression of the painterly style of Die neuen Wilden [The New Fauves] by depicting bodies in states of vulnerability, disfigurement and ecstatic joy; her work was characterised above all by its strokes, lines and drawings, which gave her paintings a lightness and intellectuality.

Galli followed her own path in the treatment of a specific physicality, which is also marked by contemporary critical allusions and feminist tendencies. A complex mixture of figures, signs, disembodied parts, porous shapes, animated architectural elements and domestic objects, such as kitchen utensils and furniture intermingle and exist on the same plenum of potential interest; depictions of domesticity and mythology in twisted and magical settings. Her work speaks of the struggle against the banalities of everyday life, as well as sexuality and longing, frustration and the will to assert oneself. Galli’s work is heir to that conquest of spontaneity seen in painting by George Mathieu, Jackson Pollock, Emil Schumacher and Karen Appel, among others, that liberation of the hand that emancipates itself from the thinking head to dance on the painting, but without the compulsion to be innovative.

The exhibition Cross Section 1987-2009 presents a selection of works produced between 1987-2009, including paintings and drawings. Galli bestows her drawings with an assemblage identity, in which "you start, and then one thing follows another". A large part of her drawings originate from writing: the artist incorporates snippets from radio stations, music and poetry, overheard gossip and words from casual conversations, all of which intermingle until the figures emerge. When asked if her drawings serve as sketches for her paintings, Galli makes a clear distinction between the two: "The small figure on paper is very beautiful, but you can't just transfer it. A painting has to come out with the same ease as a drawing to be successful".

GALLI, born in 1944 in Heusweiler (Germany), lives in Berlin. From 1962 to 1967 Galli studied painting at the Saarland School of Art in Saarbrücken. In 1969 he began higher studies at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin (now UDK). From 1992 to 2005 he taught at the FH Münster. His exhibitions include Kunstmuseum Schloss Derneburg (2023); Nogueras Blanchard, Madrid (solo, 2023); Spaced Out, Gut Kerkow (solo, 2022); brunand brunand, Berlin (solo, 2021); 11th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, KW, Berlin (2020); Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin (solo, 2015); Saarländische Galerie im Palais am Festungsgraben, Berlin (only, 2008); Kunstverein Augsburg (solo, 2005); Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrücken (2003); Museum St. Ingbert (solo, 2004); Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrücken (2003); Museum St. Ingbert (solo, 2004); Saarländische Galerie im Palais am Festungsgraben, Berlin (solo, 2008). St. Ingbert Museum (solo, 2004); Musées de la Cour d'Or, Metz (2001); Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken (solo, 1992); Villa Romana, Florence (solo, 1990); Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg (solo, 1989); Städtisches Bodensee-Museum, Friedrichshafen (solo, 1985); Gropius Bau, Berlin (1983); Moderna Galerija Ljubljana (1983); Galerie der Berliner Festspiele, Berlin (solo, 1981); Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Berlin (solo, 1980); Modersohn-Becker-Haus, Bremen (solo, 1978).

With many thanks to Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin.