{"id":661,"date":"2024-08-10T13:08:12","date_gmt":"2024-08-10T13:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juergen-umlauff.de\/?page_id=661"},"modified":"2024-08-10T13:21:25","modified_gmt":"2024-08-10T13:21:25","slug":"ein-neuer-raum-im-bild-und-seine-wahrnehmung","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/juergen-umlauff.de\/en\/ein-neuer-raum-im-bild-und-seine-wahrnehmung\/","title":{"rendered":"Ein neuer Raum im Bild\u00a0 –\u00a0 und seine Wahrnehmung"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

A new perception of space in a picture \/ <\/strong>On the latest works of J\u00fcrgen Umlauff<\/p>

By Ralf Kulschewskij (Translation: Dr. Godfrey Carr)<\/p>

The spatial environment in which contemporary human beings move, see themselves move and see others move is no longer the same, as that constructed by the Italian artists of the Renaissance when they invented perspective. Its dominance \u2013 from Leon Battista Albertis\u2019 De Pictura (1435) through Albrecht D\u00fcrer\u2019s Unterweisung der Messung (Instruction in Measurement) up to Jan Vredeman de Vries\u2019 theoretical summary Perspective (1604) has been relativised to the point of disappearance by the (ir)regularities of modern physics as accepted by contemporary science.<\/p>

From the 15th century onwards painting \u2018believed itself to be sworn to the creation of an optical illusion\u2019 (Jacob Burckhardt) and D\u00fcrer\u2019s\u2019s statement \u2018perspective seeing through\u2019 was not only valid in a visual but even more in an hermeneutic sense. According to Hans Belting\u2019s recent look back to the \u2018The Book of the Theory of Sight\u2019 by the Arab philosopher Alzahen (around 1000) (Ab\u016b \u02bfAl\u012b al-\u1e24asan ibn al-Hai\u1e6fam) we will have to re-think not only scientific knowledge but also our criticism of artistic creativity, starting again from this recently re-discovered point of departure.<\/p>

An artist who through his most recent productions contributes in an intuitive fashion to this re-thinking of the starting point is the Cologne painter J\u00fcrgen Umlauff. His artistic development has been described on a number of occasions (Ralf Kulschewskij) in the catalogues. \u201cJ\u00fcrgen Umlauff Iterations 2003 and 2006\u201d, as well as on the internet. This painter and researcher into the theory of colours has always been concerned with the \u2018fundamental phenomenological basis\u2019 for the colours blue and yellow which he sees as elemental. Furthermore, he has been engaged in eliminating the colour red, which is added as a complement to these colours by the brain of the observer in the form of a visible aura, even though it has not been painted physically and is not actually present.elemental. Furthermore, he has been engaged in eliminating the colour red, which is added as a complement to these colours by the brain of the observer in the form of a visible aura, even though it has not been painted physically and is not actually present. -<\/u> gemalte und -<\/u> vorhandene Rot zu eliminieren.<\/p>

His \u2018investigative art\u2019 moves with constantly new \u2018Iterations\u2019 (approaches through repetition) in that confusing boundary zone between seeing and perceiving.\nIn his last but one group of works Umlauff organized his work according to the precepts of the Chinese Book of Changes (I-Ching) and arrived at strictly organized figures in combinations based on a mathematical code forming an \u2018integrated structure of consciousness\u2019 as proposed by the Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser). Where, however, it is a question in the final analysis of not only getting to the world \u2018an sich\u2019 (as it really is), but also to a knowledge of its constantly changing nature as experienced by human beings, even the structured procedures of I Ching have no lasting validity<\/p>

Accordingly, J\u00fcrgen Umlauff has distanced himself in his latest works from his temporary epistemological premisses. In an almost playful manner he has returned to his investigations of the Blue\/Yellow relationship with renewed relish and now uses \u2013 almost as an experimental field - the human head, more precisely, the profile of a head seen more or less in a side view or caught in the act of turning. And in so doing, not only he, but also the close observer, experiences the correction of what is present by means of the brain functioning according to its own laws. In the spaces between the various profiles of the heads painted in strong blue and their yellow backgrounds an unmistakable pinkish red \u2018halo\u2019 shimmers. -<\/u> It can be shown that it is definitely not the colour of the (unpainted) cotton or paper background. It \u2018appears\u2019 as a discrete matt, but unmistakable, glow \u2013 and is only \u2018apparently\u2019 there, not in reality! Although it only appears, it is nevertheless definitely there.<\/p>

Legitimized by all its previous experience of seeing the brain of the observer complements the reality of the painted image. It \u2018presents\u2019 to our eyes between the forms and surfaces painted in watercolour something which in reality does not exist: an \u2018imagining\u2019 in the truest sense of the word. In the four great Janus pictures and in the many small-format \u2018Cut Pieces\u2019 from 2007 Umlauff has given the different Janus-like profiles which give the collection its name an extra dimension. Not only does their arrangement in vertical rows have an anti-gravity effect but it creates an easy charm and airy grace. The various thick tones of the same blue colour have often been applied in several coats. And the yellow which has been applied later, has in part been left pure, but also in parts shows blue traces, splashes which have been partially hidden and partially left clearly visible. As a result there emerges a lively sequence of human heads, which \u2013 in both a conservative and progressive manner \u2013 retains the significant human image and yet permits a uncertain world of colour to appear.<\/p>

Pictures of a shifting world. Each silhouette in profile is surrounded by a discreet optical aura. The shimmering pink translucence which appears is a symbol of fluctuations in the picture, in our perception, in time, in being.<\/p>

Perspectivism instead of perspective. A new optical, non illusionist picture of space and of the human being in it. This concept which was coined by Oswald Teichm\u00fcller (\u201cDie wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt\u201d, 1882 [ The real world and the apparent world]) and brought to a wider readership by Nietzsche refers to the \u2018perspectival \u2018 nature of our acquisition of knowledge, that is, the way in which it is affected by the subject, the environment, the location, and the views of the individual human being. Thus our knowledge is by its nature never final, but is always leading on to ever new perspectives. Jurgen Umlauff has succeeded in bringing this philosophical relativism before our eyes in his paintings.<\/p>

It can be no surprise that an artist whose theme has been the precarious nature of the human condition should also have recourse to the fleeting modes of representation which are to be found in the medium of film. Thus the video \u2018Profiles from a Roadmovie\u2019 came into being in the years 2005 and 2007. The face of a young woman in a moving car appears twice, looking forwards and backwards, once more in the form of that Roman god of exits and entrances and of the changing seasons of the year known as Janus. It oscillates in front of the moving landscape in Thailand ( the sub-title is \u2018On the Road To Sukhothai\u2019) And the attentive viewer will notice that the (jointly) experienced present emerges at the sharp intersection between past and future. A disturbing situation: the particular length of this present as experienced by us is simply a projection of our brains, and can thus be compared to the pinkish aura which is seen between the background yellow and the blue turning heads in the watercolours.<\/p>

A physical body can only be conceived of within the space which surrounds it, so that this appears to be a \u201csort of superior reality to the world of bodies\u201d; (Albert Einstein in his preface to Max Jammer\u2019s \u2018Das Problem des Raums\u2019 [\u2018The Problem of Space\u2019]1960. But the epistemologically necessary shift away from an absolute concept of space in favour of a concept of a field with four space-time components as used in modern physics, has still not become a generally accepted factor in our thought processes (almost ten years after Einstein\u2019s \u201c Kosmologische Betrachtungen zur allgemeinen Relativit\u00e4tstheorie\u201d 1917, [Cosmological Considerations in Relation to the General Theory of Relativity] ). Umlauff is here moving on to the terrain of a controversial intellectual debate. \u2018Reading time in Space\u2019 is the postulate of the biologist Friedrich Ratzel, who coined the term \u2018Lebensraum\u2019. This means learning to see again! The works of the painter and video artist J\u00fcrgen Umlauff are an aesthetically convincing means of making the need for this change visible, in both its mental and visual aspects. ( Paul Virilios\u2019 thesis of the \u2018Disappearance of Space\u2019 has indeed been proved utterly wrong)<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ein neuer Raum im Bild\u00a0 –\u00a0 und seine Wahrnehmung \/ Zu den j\u00fcngsten Werken von J\u00fcrgen Umlauff Von Ralf Kulschewskij Die R\u00e4umlichkeit, in der die heute lebenden Menschen sich bewegen, sich sehen und sich bewegen sehen, ist nicht mehr dieselbe, die die italienischen K\u00fcnstler der Renaissance konstruierten, als sie die Zentralperspektive erfanden. Deren Dominanz\u00a0 –\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"full-screen","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"off","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"on","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"off","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"off","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-661","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juergen-umlauff.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juergen-umlauff.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juergen-umlauff.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juergen-umlauff.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juergen-umlauff.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/juergen-umlauff.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":668,"href":"https:\/\/juergen-umlauff.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/661\/revisions\/668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juergen-umlauff.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}