Galerie Gegen & Lücke // 'Ätschi Bätsch' by Björn Heyn

In his new exhibition “Ätschi Bätsch”, Berlin-based artist Björn Heyn playfully sticks his tongue out at the audience. At first glance, his paintings appear playful, childlike, and fun, but on closer inspection, they reveal themselves as a rather complex game with layers of reality and illusion. Floral and fruit still lifes from classical art history collide with seemingly naïve forms of expression. The pleasure lies not only in this civil disobedience of mixing high and low culture; the “fun factor” unfolds as a veritable mental puzzle.

Flowers in vases and fruit in bowls on tables—this is the quintessential classical still life, familiar from centuries of art history. It continues to live on in countless décor tips and interior design ideas. And then there’s the table with chairs, another theme almost as old as humanity itself. We flood the various networks with recipes, social cooking events, and endless cooking shows. We invoke community, sociability, and coziness. Food truly seems important.

In Heyn’s paintings, the beauty of still lifes and the laid table meet an unbridled love of colors and patterns, surfaces and forms, through which he reformulates the order of things in an immediate way. Like children, he places objects in front of, beside, and on top of each other without regard for three-dimensional spatial logic (...)

Text: Veronika Schöne