Art News

German artist Anton Henning’s first solo show in Scotland Talbot Rice Gallery

EDINBURGH.- In his first solo show in Scotland, German artist Anton Henning created a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) within Talbot Rice Gallery. Bright painted walls transformed the space providing a backdrop for the exhibition, which brings together furniture, lighting, easel painting, sculpture, window painting and drawing. Henning’s bold, individual style, fluent in art historical references, challenges notions of ‘good’ taste. His work pays homage to revered Modern artists like Matisse and Picabia while including subject matter, such as ‘chocolate box’ images of birds and sunsets and naked female figures that are often subject to censure. Henning’s approach also draws from the movement of ‘bad painting’ of the late 1970s and 1980s, a movement of artists disregarding restrictive conventions in order to explore alternative possibilities in paint