Exhibition from June 14th, 2020 – August 14th, 2020
(on the first floor of Schloss Biesdorf)

Curated by Dr. Gerlinde Förster

Ronald Paris (*1933) is one of the outstanding painters and graphic artists of his generation. The retrospective exhibition shows paintings and drawings that exemplify the artist's life's work in a contrasting spatial counterpart.

The artist's oeuvre includes paintings and drawings, graphics and collages, stained glass, tapestries, stage sets and construction-related works in public space. Of equal artistic importance to large-format works in exposed locations are the paintings and graphics created on the easel in the studio, often inspired by literature, theatre and travel.

Paris needs the experience of the landscape, the human figure, and it needs the history associated with it. The desire to understand the human being by nature, to get behind the reasons and abysses of his actions, is the real driving force that drives the creation of his pictorial world to this day.

He seeks recourse to ancient figures and myths, is inspired by the dramas of Shakespeare to the poetry of Volker Braun and takes up this material for his artistic interpretations. Prometheus, Odysseus, Marsyas, Appolon, Sisyphus, Kassandra, Medea, Icarus, Iphigenia, Sappho or Hamlet, Lear and others are metaphors for him to place basic human themes in the social context of his time.

An important facet of his work are the portraits, they are the condensed expression of his realistic art. One of those portrayed is Otto Nagel. Even today, the time at the Academy of Arts, which was formative for Paris, is still alive with him as his master student. Other drawings such as those by Ernst Busch, Hanns Eisler, Heiner Müller, Harry Kupfer and Inge Keller refer to Paris' great proximity to the theater.

To this day, Paris' need is to intervene artistically. Through many of his artistic interpretations he polemically and defiantly challenges a dialogue. He is one of the few picture makers who, in search of the truth, ruthlessly illuminates living space and defends human dignity with his art. This basic trait is characteristic of his artistic attitude.

The exhibition is supported by the exhibition fund Kommunale Galerien Berlin of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe.

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