Rafael Gerlach: Wear And Tear

Rafael Gerlach's work is built on a reflection on context and sedimentation, to borrow from geological vocabulary. The way objects pile up, the way layers of paint and posters accumulate in the city and on its margins; all these different traces left by humans constitute a living palimpsest, signs that we are there and that others have been there. The title of the exhibition, Wear And Tear, speaks to us of transformation and alteration. 

 “I love to go for walks along the railway tracks to explore vacant lots and abandoned buildings. These places have become real sources of inspiration for me, not for their architecture, but for the pile of abandoned objects as random visual compositions.“ — Rafael Gerlach

By scraping away the different layers of paint and using the collage technique, Rafael Gerlach assembles these newly generated elements into new compositions. Like the foundation walls of an abandoned building, canvas or wood become the carrier of these superimpositions, the process of wear and tear being formally preserved. The exhibition presents a dozen new paintings on canvas and wood.