carlier | gebauer is pleased to announce MENSCHENBILD, a group exhibition featuring works by Stevie Dix, Lexia Hachtmann, Friedemann Heckel, Erik Schmidt, Thomas Schütte, and Jan Van Imschoot.

The German term Menschenbild, which roughly translates as “conception of man” or “human image,” describes an attitude rather than a likeness. Today, the most exciting figurative work only partially draws from direct observation, opting instead to compose works “through the mind, combining memories, fantasies, and the disparate imagery that floods our vision.” MENSCHENBILD similarly seek to delve beneath the surface of figuration and the image to uncover shared ways of seeing. Stevie Dix’s paintings entwine a surrealist atmosphere with emotional realism, which materializes through thick, tactile brushstrokes. Her works are propelled by a strong narrative impulse that considers the interplay between presence and absence in a lived moment. Based on photographs taken with his mobile phone, Friedemann Heckel’s watercolors capture lone individuals engaged in transitory moments of reverie: a woman gazes dreamily out of a train window, a man casts his gaze downwards while smoking, another covers his face with his hand in a gesture of stress or fatigue. The pale washy colors of these images imbue them with a mood of introspection and melancholy.