The main theme of Carl-Heinz Kliemann's work is the city of Berlin, his home, where he finds inspiration and creative vigour. His art is rooted in fading Expressionism, in the late work of the Brücke master Schmidt-Rottluff and Max Kaus.
In the anniversary exhibition celebrating Carl-Heinz Kliemann's 90th birthday, Villa Grisebach is focusing on two groups of the artist's works: colour woodcuts from 1947 to 2002 and portrait drawings from 1960 to 1990.
Eberhard Roters wrote in the catalogue of the Kliemann exhibition at the Pels-Leusden Gallery in 1984: "The woodcut is Kliemann's genuine artistic technique. He began his oeuvre with it. [...] The transition from the expressionist to the metaphorical style, from the architectural to the tectonic creative period can be precisely dated by the model of the woodcut. Even more than the paintings, the woodcuts reveal the Schmidt-Rottluff pupil's origins in classical German Expressionism. Kliemann explicitly acknowledged the origins of his art. The woodcut gives him the opportunity to gain freedom of design from the restrictions imposed by the material and tools of the trade. The most effective design element of this technique is the contrast that organises the surface. Kliemann has given the technique an unmistakable formal language. An increasing clarity in the structuring of the motif according to overlapping pictorial surface units can be recognised. Tectonics and atmosphere have found a unity in the form of opposites, which conveys one thing above all: the sensation of floating, serene calmness wrested from the dark heaviness."
Less well known in the artist's oeuvre are his portraits. Kliemann understands the portrait entirely in the traditional sense of art history - it should depict a specific person in a recognisable, descriptive and interpretative way - and he has described it as an interesting but difficult task. "Even after 50 years, you should still be able to recognise what the person looked like" (C.-H. Kliemann). It is a moving moment to encounter creative personalities of post-war Berlin such as Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Leopold Reidemeister, Edwin Redslob, Bernhard Minetti, Heinz Ohff and others again in the exhibition.
Villa Grisebach, Berlin, 13 June 2014