ADAM BOTA SCHICHTWECHSEL - BSA - Berlin Selected Artists

Uwe Goldenstein
Curator and founder of the BSA artist collective.
Berlin Selected Artists. Berlin, April 2012
gains the upper hand; it is independent of space or
person and completely and utterly generated by
observation, superimposed by a meaningful veil from
are models for a zeitgeist-conforming critical attitude
according to which the old-fashioned (due to the
slowness of its nature) medium of painting and the
an askew world.
catharsis of Punk rock can be read as opposite worlds
that are set against a purely affirmative and perpetual
Throughout Adam Bota’s body of work, dissolving and
artificial frenzy of a digitalized and function-oriented
Quiet, Please.
an aspect of this is the simultaneously unusual and
sometimes dripping painting structures allow access
to the existential interior life of his characters but
present. This establishes the work as highly relevant
and impressionistic, and it speaks to a young
The world is what can be regained.
completely natural or graceful unity that his figures
achieve in relation to the spaces they occupy. In this
block the view to concrete emotions. This mysterious
atmosphere transforms scenes, which are in truth
generation that has the urge to consciously retreat
into dark rooms, suddenly and shamelessly dozing off
Hans Blumenberg (Out of the Cave)
series figures blend with their environments,
mundane, into exciting and universal ones, and it is in
in attempt to escape a fully rationalized linear reality.
I‘m Not There.
rendering everything quite still, nearly reverent.
Elderly men sit alone sinking into sofas from times
this way Bota captures a condition relevant to the
zeitgeist, be it that of the ecstatic club, the lonely
A mild state of intoxication, a quiet and subtle plea
for distance from our world which is littered with
Bob Dylan
past in their favorite Viennese cafés, faces turned
regular in a nostalgic café, or a forgotten and
visual banalities. Our hopelessly overloaded and
from the viewer, their heads are lowered in a placid
reconstructed family scene. Adam Bota’s concentrati-
contingency overridden future of projected digital
Contrary to the loud nature of Punk-rock concerts –
daytime sleep that is secluded from the world. In
on on surface and structure, with its reoccurring
images possesses a great disadvantage, it – as
a reoccurring subject in Bota’s recent work – the
Bota’s well-tempered paintings entire bodies can
patterns and play with lighting and corporality unifies
opposed to the highly concentrated and recovery-
scenes he renders in oils emanate a rather tranquil
dissolve while color plays with form and collaborates
the motif during the process of painting, and conser-
centric medium painting – does not, cannot, and does
and reflective, yet nonetheless intense, atmosphere.
with lighting. Spots of light blend with color nuances,
ves split second experiences whose emotional worlds
not want to reach for meaning.
With the flow of paint on canvas with his crossfades
overlap and become inseparably united. The facial
are informed by the dawning of a mixture of past and
and layers, Bota captures the cathartic experience of
gestures of his subjects vanish as their conscious-
projected emotions. According the painter, the
concert-going; of people in an ecstatically charged
ness makes its way to an intermediate world. The
unconscious spirit can only develop beyond reality
crowd dancing uncontrolled to fast and hard beats. In
phenomenon of sudden sleep (Sekundenschlaf)
within darkness and absorption, and it asserts itself
Bota’s depictions the partying individual threatens to
usually occurs unnoticed and unsolicited, and
through materializing into an abstract leaning
disappear within the intertwining painted areas: like
describes the thin surface that lies between uncon-
atmospheric image. Bota therefore approaches the
grapes on a vine, he melts together with his like-
scious slumbering – ephemerally colored lethargic
cold banality of the world with a self-referential
minded peers and the excitement of the moment
dream sequences – and lucid (even if insular) reality.
painterly quality and a sinister but warm palate. Each
takes on a life of its own. Fragments of piled bodies
Bota’s Sekundenschläfer (sudden sleepers) transpose
one of his scenes possess a fragile life of its own,
appear to penetrate each other, come apart and join
seamlessly and without contour into this indetermina-
the observer – or rather viewer – never gets close to
to create a large inseparable body-in-motion. Beneath
te space and in so doing gain a universally accessible,
the figure. It is in constant retreat, fleeing one way or
the artificial, often sparsely utilized light, which
symbolic meaning. This process is most interesting to
the other through countless diffuse layers of oil – just
recalls the neon in night clubs, contours cancel each
Bota. His oeuvre, which can be described as having
as the spaces they inhabit never unambiguously revel
other out. Adam Bota thus emphasizes the ecstatic
achieved intelligible liquefaction of space and figure,
themselves, but rather suggest an intermediate
experience of the concert. His carefully placed colors
operates as a steady impressionistic play on the
world.
assert a complementary life of their own. They tie
phenomenon of sinking into the background and
themselves to the forms and lead the viewer’s eye to
emerging from it, comparable to the phenomena of
Bota consequently proves to be a silent observer and
the energetic transference that is occurring in this
the unconscious world melting with the just-percei-
intermediary of multifaceted perception and the
independent artistic sphere. The punk moment
ved reality when one nods off involuntary. His
unfathomableness of thought that follows timeless
becomes a frozen leitmotif in search of disengage-
subjects shimmer like finely cubed models of
and quasi-invisible laws, even if these at times lead
ment from the intensity of life – be it through layers
themselves that have gone beyond figurativeness
solely into a melancholy colored darkness that
of paint or in the dark intimacy of the club.
into painterly uncertainty and thus convey a suggesti-
become alive and apparent only once there.
ve rather than tangible narrative. Time is thwarted
As can be witnessed in his brilliant series Sekunden-
and time-spacial continuity looses its relevance.
Equipped with this perspective, Adam Bota’s pain-
schlaf, Adam Bota manages disappearance masterfully,
A temporality that is informed from a pure visuality
tings can be understood as haunting metaphors. They
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