Joe Bradley / Tobias Pils
Joe Bradley / Tobias Pils. Poster of the exhibition. Courtesy Capitain Petzel, Berlin © the artist
When I think of my paintings, I never think in black and white, and even forget that I paint only in shades of gray (…) You may see it in black and white but you don’t experience it in black and white.
Tobias Pils, 2021
Tobias Pils, The Fall, 2021. Courtesy Capitain Petzel, Berlin © the artist
Tobias Pils, The Arrival, 2021. Courtesy Capitain Petzel, Berlin © the artist
Capitain Petzel is pleased to announce the joint exhibition of painters Joe Bradley and Tobias Pils on the occasion of Gallery Weekend *Discoveries. This exhibition marks the American artist Joe Bradley‘s debut in the Berlin gallery, as well as the first time the two befriended artists’ work is being brought into dialogue with one another. Bradley’s explosive and colorful abstract paintings meet Pils’ grey-toned, suggestively figurative scenes, revealing surprising contrasts and similarities between their respective individual and unique practices. Additionally, selected works on paper by Bradley and Pils are on view in the lower exhibition space, providing insight into a further dimension of the artists’ oeuvres.
Tobias Pils, Untitled, 2020. Courtesy Capitain Petzel, Berlin © the artist
Tobias Pils, The discussion, 2021. Courtesy Capitain Petzel, Berlin © the artist
I’m not interested in determining whether a painting is a dark or light one, every painting always contains everything; it should be funny and sad, light and dark, boring and exciting at the same time. I’m always interested in the whole life in one painting.
Tobias Pils, 2021
Joe Bradley, 2021. Courtesy Capitain Petzel, Berlin © the artist
Joe Bradley, Untitled, 2021. Courtesy Capitain Petzel, Berlin © the artist
Ive always been preoccupied with the sculptural quality of painting, or rather, the fact that the painting is also an object. We tend to ignore the fact that a painting is a physical, three-dimensional thing, and to treat it more as a window, or a portal. Paintings have that power and that quality, they can function like that – but they’re also these rickety things that have a backstage area we’re not privy too.
Joe Bradley, 2018
Joe Bradley, 2021. Courtesy Capitain Petzel, Berlin © the artist