Zeno X Gallery is pleased to present a new solo exhibition by Johannes Kahrs (1965, Bremen). The exhibition Early this mornin’, ooh combines new paintings with works that were shown earlier this year at the Lyon Biennial. The exhibition will travel in May 2016 to FRAC Ile-de-France in Paris and be completed with a number of important works from private collections.

At the Lyon Biennial, along with his paintings, Johannes Kahrs presented for the first time part of his image archive. Photographs and film stills form the basis of his work. For years, he has been collecting images from magazines, newspapers or movies, along with images he himself occasionally records. In his painting, Kahrs as it were frees the image from its original context or frame of reference; anecdote and narrative are avoided. Through interventions such as zooming, fragmentation or shifts in perspective, he fictionalizes his ‘images trouvées’ from popular culture, advertising, and (political) history. Reality, by depicting it in an entirely new way, is called into question.

The subjects he portrays are diverse yet in this exhibition he presents a remarkable number of portraits. Famous and popular figures like Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse and Justin Bieber are depicted in his paintings. The way in which their lives - which have become almost entirely part of the public domain - are portrayed by the media fascinates Kahrs much more than their ‘talents’. The work Untitled (thomas), for instance, is based on a ‘mug shot’ that was made after the young singer’s arrest by the police. The figures look lonely, lost and helpless. The portraits can be read in a different way as well; as mosaic-like self-portraits of the artist.

Untitled (god) is the ambiguous title of Kahrs’ portrait of Bill Cosby. Since 2000, the world famous star of The Cosby Show has been the subject of sexual abuse allegations. Kahrs is fascinated by this lawsuit because of the change in the way Cosby is perceived; as the first African-American person with his own television show, he was regarded by many as a role model, while the recent allegations expose him as a monster.

Untitled (chair bed bag man) was inspired by a picture the artist took in a hotel room, and also refers to the painting ‘Intérieur’ (1868-1869) by the French artist Edgar Degas. The subject of the work has been under discussion for decades, and some even claim that it depicts the scene of a rape. Because of the special perspective used by Kahrs - the female character is entirely absent - he manages to avoid this debate.

The exhibition title refers to an old blues song by Robert Johnson (1911-1938), namely “Me and the Devil Blues’. Not much is known with certainty about the life of this blues legend. According to a well-known myth, he sold his soul to the devil to become a guitar virtuoso.

Earlier solo exhibitions of Johannes Kahrs include, among others, Kunsthalle Nürnberg (2014),  Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden (2013), CentrePasquArt in Biel (2012), GAMeC in Bergamo (2007), Parasol Unit for Contemporary Art in London (2006), Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin (2002), FRAC Pays de la Loire in Carquefou (2001), Kunstverein München in Munich (2001) and S.M.A.K. in Ghent (2001).

His work was also included in exhibitions at Centre Pompidou in Paris, Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf, Dallas Museum of Art in Dallas, SFMOMA in San Francisco, Galerie Neue Meister in Dresden, Castello di Rivoli in Turin, Hayward Gallery in London, Bozar in Brussels, and many others.

The work of Johannes Kahrs is included in the public collections of Centre Pompidou in Paris, MOCA in Los Angeles, MoMA in New York, UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, S.M.A.K. in Ghent, FRAC Auvergne in Clermont-Ferrand, Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, SFMOMA in San Francisco, FRAC de Picardie in Amiens, FRAC Pays de la Loire in Carquefou, Fundacao de Serralves in Porto, and others.