Duri Galler

Unter dem Chaos der Strand

June 10 – July 15 2007

After quiting his job as a social worker in 1996, Duri Galler (*1952 in Munich, lives and works in Winterthur) focused more and more on being an artist. In fact, one could look even further back to the 1970s, when Galler had seen German expressionism like Kirchner for the first time. It was not only the possibility of expressing one's own inner feelings but also the technique of woodprinting which remains crucial in his work until today. Based on fundamental questions about life and happiness, he always comes back to topics of guilt, social ideals and sexuality. Center stage in his exhibition at the Kunsthalle Winterthur are three new pieces of work. Witness of the accused shows a wood carved social misfit and prisonner of life, who prefers finding orientation in the icons of cultural heritage. Under the chaos the beach combines a woodprint of a lying man and several drawings of a chaotic flat. The drawings are unpretentious, showing different views of the flat. It is their banality indeed which give them a poetical twist. The third work is about horses. For several years Galler went on walks, drawing the same horses over and over again. According to the artist, he was not interested in demonstrating his drawing skills and the naturalistic representation of the animal but more the animal as symbols of a natural state, where mankind was expelled from along time ago.

Oliver Kielmayer