Reyle, Anselm

The painter, sculptor and object artist Anselm Reyle is one of the most successful contemporary artists. Trained as a landscape gardener, he begins his art education at the Staatlichen Akademien der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe. He employs up to 50 people in his studio in Berlin-Kreuzberg, later in Berlin-Treptow, producing abstract objects, paintings and room installations. In his use of objets trouvés and materials from the urban throwaway culture such as advertising foils, car paint, neon tube lights and electric waste, Reyle is interested in the creation of effective surfaces with simple materials. Among his most famous work groups are the 'foil paintings' and the stripe pictures. He transfers the analysis of the decadence and triviality of the consumer Pop Art world into abstract art. Informel, Cubism and Op and Minimal Art also play a part in his work. His African sculptures generate tense ambivalence between material and tradition: the statuettes, reminiscent of tourist souvenirs, are monumentalised as industrially manufactured bronzes. In 2009, he had an important exhibition in the Gagosian Gallery in New York, and in 2011 in the Hamburg Deichtorhallen. He is represented in prestigious collections worldwide. From 2014, the artist is taking a creative break for an indefinite period.