Wonderland | Lothar Osterburg
Lothar Osterburg
Triggered by a COVID postponed—since re-scheduled—museum show at the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in the artist’s hometown of Braunschweig, Germany, Lothar Osterburg turned to the museum as a source of inspiration for this recent body of work. Starting with the museum’s building, recreated in snow and sand, his work focuses primarily on the content of the museum; visible and invisible, real and imaginary. From card catalogs and libraries to the cabinets of wonder, Osterburg finds inspiration inamassing artifacts and knowledge. The interiors represent spaces shaped by longing and remembrance, telling the stories of memories and specific images. Rembrandt’s etching Jerome in a Dark Chamber, the photograph by Frederick H. Evan, A Sea of Steps, and Kertész’s Chez Mondrian, as well as the artist’s first apartment in an attic and a friend’s cluttered apartment in Berlin, all become subjects and objects for his museum exhibition.
With the introduction of an optical lens view, the artist’s Models maintain the same mystery as the prints: he creates from them and therefore are no longer just the source of his artistic process.
The German native Lothar Osterburg is known as an artist, master printer, and teacher of photogravure. He completed art school at the Art Academy Braunschweig in Germany and received his training as Master Printer at Crown Point Press in San Francisco. He has exhibited internationally and has work included in many public and private collections. Awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Academy Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2010, two New York Foundations for the Arts Fellowships, and a 2018 Jordan Schnitzer Award for Excellence in Printmaking. He currently teaches at Bard College, NY.