Description

This book is a catalogue of paintings by the German artist Matthias Dornfeld. No more, no less. As the essay by Katie Geha point out, Dornfeld creates paintings that hinge on the hysterical. He repeatedly paints familiar subjects: landscapes, portraits, and still lifes. “The subjects and motives are simple,” he explains. “They come without thinking. They’re stupid, banal, commonplace, clichés.” It is through the repetitive use of the familiar, even boring—both in process and in subject matter—that Dornfeld subverts these painterly tropes and, in turn, makes them strange, makes them funny.