Cool clash between past and present
By Amalie Laustsen
The German artist Thorben Eggers is a child of the 90s. Being born prior to the millennium, he had his fair share of floppy disks and VCR tapes, which serve as a nostalgic source of inspiration for his distinctive artistic universe.
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With inspiration from photographies and overlooked objects from real life, Thorben Eggers creates hyper realistic paintings of out-dated digital devices. Almost like a pop artist from the sixties, he creates colourful series of large brightly floppy disks, which stand out as a collective reminder of the accelerating technological evolution. Furthermore, the series is a reflection of the artist’s personal nostalgia about a transformed media landscape that brings about a sentimental gap between the analogue and the digital world. By merging the past with the present and reality with painting, Thorben Eggers initiates a dialogue on how we perceive and understand reality.
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Thorben Eggers’ practice is characterised by a wide range of expressions and a fascination with the mix of materials. Throughout his body of work, he examines how different and apparently opposite materials and textures interact with each other. His Metal-series, in which he combines a cold surface with a thin white line of canvas, is a clash between surfaces. The result is a minimalistic and cool expression, where he invites us to a gentle touch. One thing connects Thorben Eggers’ manifold expressions: through his pieces of fiction, he aims to make the audience aware of the real world that surrounds us – a world that he keeps exploring in the schism between old and new forms of expressions.
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CV
Thorben Eggers (b. 1988)
Lives and works in Vienna, Austria, and Düsseldorf, Germany
Graduated from The Art Academy in Düsseldorf in 2015
Selected exhibitions
2016 Düsseldorf:trifft, Wien Kunstraum Super, Vienna
2015 Reproduktives Entwerfen – lieblingsbieder, Naus no.1, Berlin
2015 Devouring Ghost – Klasse Havekost, Weltkunstzimmer, Düsseldorf
2015 Super Edition #3, Super, Vienna at & selecto Planta Baja, Los Angeles
2015 Full Resolution, Kunstverein Leverkusen schloss morsbroich,leverkusen
2015 Silberrückend, Galerie Felix Ringel, Düsseldorf
2014 Marres Currents #2 – Rumour has it, Marres Cultur House, Maastricht