Published 19 NOV 2024

2 NOV until 21 DEC 2024

Capitain Petzel is pleased to announce Thomas Eggerer’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, opening on 2 November 2024. 

For Galeria, the artist has created a monumental work titled Fitness (2024). We see a meticulously arranged scene of figures engaged in various activities within a sprawling, mirrored gym-like space, where the interaction of forms and poses blurs the line between individual presence and collective choreography. The arrangements within the composition recall the structure of history painting, but instead of depicting a grand event, Eggerer focuses on how bodies and spaces intersect through forms, gesture and pose.

Alongside Fitness, the artist selected a set of five paintings from an earlier body of work, which present scenes of protest. The figures hold signs and wave flags, though their gestures appear directed toward an undefined viewer. The flags billow freely, suggesting movement and energy, while the figures beneath appear static, their limbs awkwardly positioned as if loosely attached. Also here the focus shifts from individual figures to the orchestrated arrangement of movements, while the groupings and subtle variations suggest underlying bonds of community and collective presence. This approach not only adds to the visual complexity of Eggerer’s paintings, but also reflects his interest in the fragmented nature of contemporary social experiences. 

The figurative elements in Eggerer’s paintings are never fully described by the use of color, space, form, or light. However, they do not become purely abstract either. Some elements – logos, objects, or familiar imagery – offer a sense of concrete reality, grounding the viewer in the identifiable. Yet, this familiarity is disrupted by the presence of something that remains obscured. Eggerer avoids overly realistic effects or any strong narrative illusions. It’s akin to encountering doors that cannot be opened; pathways are suggested, but never fully revealed. The result is a series of compositions that suggest a world more intuitive and painterly than rigidly logical or constructed. As Helmut Draxler has stated, “instead of individual imprints and expressionist effects, this artistic approach always thematizes either people in groups, or social spaces, and on a formal level this brings the conventions of painting itself into play”.

On view in the downstairs exhibition space of the gallery is a series of collages set against the background of Eggerer’s work Tanning – a wallpaper of an archival image that depicts a large group of people sunbathing and lounging on stadium bleachers, with colorful towels spread out across the seats. In his own words, the artist highlights his appreciation for the “breathtaking treasures” these visual archives hold, from intimate locker room moments to sunbathers in sports arenas. His collages, however, transform these ordinary scenes into complex compositions that resist immediate consumption. Eggerer’s collages often feature a “stuttering” effect, as described by David Joselit, where similar actions or groups appear from different angles or moments in time, creating a cinematic layering that compresses successive images into a single, simultaneous visual experience. 

Thomas Eggerer (born 1963 in Munich, Germany) has exhibited internationally at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Brandhorst Museum, Munich; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien; White Columns, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Vancouver Art Gallery; CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco, and Frankfurter Kunstverein, among many others.

Eggerer was also a member of Group Material, a renowned movement of conceptual artists active between 1979 and 1996. As of 2024, Eggerer has been appointed Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. 

11 JAN until 15 FEB 2025

Capitain Petzel is pleased to announce Cascade, Jack O’Brien’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery, opening on January 11, 2025.

For the exhibition, O’Brien presents a striking suspended sculpture that merges two grand pianos into a singular, imposing form, hovering mid-air within the gallery space. The pianos are stripped of their traditional function yet retain their physical grandeur. Between them is a striking void, a central negative space that becomes the focal point of the composition, evoking both a sense of dialogue and rupture. By suspending these instruments and cutting a void at their core, O’Brien reimagines them as objects of silence and memory, rather than tools of sound. Assemblage becomes a means of storytelling for the artist, where fragments of materials carry traces of their past.

The cascade emerges as a unifying gesture within the exhibition, threading through each work with a sense of motion that feels simultaneously fluid and interrupted. The works on view, created from repurposed materials partly sourced in Berlin, reflect O’Brien’s sensitivity to material histories and an interest in the interplay between the personal and the found, weaving local narratives into his broader exploration of space and form. In O’Brien’s practice gestural repetition is reminiscent of the dynamism found in Futurist painting. The fractured forms and layered materials suggest movement captured mid-stream, as if the works themselves were animated or imbued with an internal rhythm that propels them beyond their material confines.

Here the crescendo also serves as a conceptual undercurrent. Like a musical swell, the sculptures seem to build toward an apex, holding the viewer in a state of anticipation. This crescendo, both visual and metaphorical, amplifies the interplay of silence and motion, creating a rhythm that crescendos not to sound, but to a sense of presence and potential. The suspended grand pianos exemplify this quality, as they seem to both rise and fall, caught in a moment of unresolved transition. Viewers can experience the works as dynamic, unfolding events rather than static objects.

Grounded in a subtle interplay of material, personal experience, and cultural critique, O’Brien’s installations evoke a sense of precarity, reflecting both the physical and social fragility of the structures he creates. The artist is particularly interested in destabilizing the fixed nature of objects, forcing rigid materials like metal and glass into confrontations that evoke a sense of unease. Through these clashes, he challenges notions of form and function with works that appear charged with nervous energy, as if on the verge of collapse. This precariousness becomes a metaphor for the broader, often fraught, dynamics of identity, particularly within the context of queer cultural histories and the lineage of queer abstraction.

Jack O’Brien‘s (born 1993 in London, UK) solo and duo exhibitions include Camden Art Centre, London (2024); Between Bridges, Berlin (2023); Sans Titre Invites, Paris (2023); Lockup International, London (2022); Polamagnetczne Gallery, Warsaw (2022) and Ginny on Frederick, London (2021). Group exhibitions include Non-Specific Objects, Capitain Petzel, Berlin (2024); Support Structures, Gathering, London, (2023); Memory of Rib, N/A Gallery, Seoul, KR (2022); Something is Burning, Kunsthalle Bratislava (2022) and An Insular Rococo, Hollybush Gardens, London (2022).

As the 2023 recipient of Camden Art Centre’s Emerging Artist Prize at Frieze, Jack O’Brien’s solo exhibition The Reward is currently on view at Camden Art Centre in London. The artist is also currently participating in a group exhibition at the CAPC Bordeaux. His work is part of the Pinault Collection, Paris and The Perimeter, London