Georg Herold f.: Opening
Friday, 27 February 2026, 6 – 8 pm

Capitain Petzel is pleased to announce the solo exhibition Georg Herold f., on view from February 27, 2026.

In 1985, Georg Herold presented his Kunstraub [Art Theftology] series in the exhibition Unschärferelation at the Realismusstudio of the nGbK in Berlin. At the core of the group are three roof-batten frames of roughly equal size, more or less crudely nailed together and covered with black fabric panels of varying dimensions. In Kunstraub I [Art Theftology I], 1985, the fabric is draped in elegant folds, allowing generous glimpses of large sections of the frame - a nonchalant deconstruction of Suprematist transcendence. Kunstraub II [Art Theftology II], 1985, appears as the literal enactment of Sigmar Polke’s Higher Beings Commanded: Paint the Upper Right Corner Black!, as one might expect from a dutiful student (Herold studied with Polke at the HFBK in Hamburg from 1977 to 1981). In Kunstraub III [Art Theftology III], 1985, by contrast, only the upper right corner of the frame is wrapped in black fabric like a gauze bandage - if one wishes, an image of healing long before the term gained currency in the art world.

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This sequence of paintings that become progressively “less” plays with the intellectual history of modern art. They move between a utopian conception of the image, artistic inspiration, and deskilling, without committing to any one position. Taken literally, however, the series’ title raises a question that is at once banal and fundamental: who stole from whom? And where was the art before it disappeared? In the picture? In front of it? Behind it?

What unites Georg Herold’s early roof-batten works is a logic of exposure. Everything is laid bare; there are no secrets. Room Enough, 1986 - a work that also exists in several variations - has already, by virtue of its standardized materials, dropped its trousers. In the large objects of the 2000s, sewn into heavy canvas, this logic appears to have reversed itself. The colored, lacquered fabric is stretched taut over complex roof-batten constructions that oscillate between biomorphic structure (Untitled, 2007) and figurative representation (Der Zeiger [The accuser], 2007). The interior that determines the form is entirely concealed. These works are far more elaborate in their production; the demand for precision and fit is visibly higher. (In an early precursor to the yellow sculpture, Pfannkuchentheorie [Pancake theory], 1986, the textile skin still formed creases around the roof-batten core.) And yet they are only what they are: roof battens set under tension with canvas - no metaphorical depth, no illusionistic game. Perhaps these different bodies of work are not so dissimilar in essence as first impressions might suggest. In both cases, one is confronted with the challenge of visible evidence. Whether through total revelation or concealed form, the desire for interpretation initially leads us astray.

The all-too-human impulse to cement meaning through interpretation also accompanies the Caviar Paintings that have emerged since the late 1980s - hardly surprising, given how closely luxury and the profane converge here. They can certainly be read as a wry commentary on the value of art and on the attempt to determine a work’s significance through material equivalence - particularly within a system in which factors such as canvas size or the so-called artist factor, based on reputation and influence, determine a painting’s market price. So, caviar as currency, then. Yet for Georg Herold, caviar is above all one thing: an excellent painting medium. Made visible through the addition of mica or mother-of-pearl, it floats in the binder across the surface, settles, condenses, and in doing so creates contours and forms that the sweeping, gestural application of paint alone could not produce. The sequences of numbers -hovering between code and numerology (and earlier, the meticulous counting of each individual grain of caviar) - complete the paintings with subtle gradations of gray. Viewing Georg Herold’s paintings, one oscillates between reading, looking, and sensing the trace of physical movement.