Unvorhergesehenes
What hasn’t been seen before
Markus Honerla
01.09 – 03.12.2021
The motif of the window in painting has a long tradition. Jan van Eyck, for example, showed us an idealized outside world in “The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin” in 1436, Albrecht Dürer’s self-portrait of 1498 opens a small detail into an invented nature, and Edward Hopper thematized either the view from outside to inside or from inside to outside in almost all his works in the 20th century. The window motif is especially relevant today in the time of environmental problems to be solved and transformations on the horizon, showing the viewer the threshold from the inside to the outside. Gallery Berghout has begun a series of exhibitions on nature, which now reveals positions from the threshold of the window in the current exhibition “Unvorhergesehenes / What hasn’t been seen before” by Markus Honerla. The works are a contemporary interpretation of the views from a supposedly safe inner world into the outside world, which becomes strange to us. Are these windows a metaphor for the current state in nature and a view into a world that hasn’t been seen before? Humanity is on the threshold of a future that demands a rethinking of our habits. The windows and their views into the outside world show a different position for each of us and a multi-layered panorama of individual reality. Markus Honerla’s picturesque view out of his windows suggests the diversity of tasks that nature demands of us. Despite the different perspectives and perceptions for the outside world and nature, we all have to come together to preserve our planet in a sustainable way. Honerla’s windows open us to glimpses of a world that is unexpected and hasn’t been seen before. Thresholds allow us to cross over to the outside world, to finally gain the respectful overview and vision.
Gloria Berghout, July 2021
