Lot 552 D

'One (...) type in the fruit pictures combines two different perspectives: branches with leaves and fruits in the foreground, and a view onto a distant, low-lying landscape (...). These works also possess an idyllic moment, stemming from the motif. However, the impression of the idyll as a place of contemplative safety does not sit so well, as close-up and distant views are placed so unexpectedly together that they almost dramatize each other. Such drama doesn't belong to the idyll. The viewer is also unable to adopt a convincing viewpoint to gain him confidence. For the artist hasn't added a foreground where the viewer has his own standpoint and therefore a spatial reference to the picture space. One has the irritating feeling of being in an undefined spatial proximity to the nearby fruit branch, and without a pictorial anchor, the feeling of perhaps hanging high up in the air. The almost heroic monumentalism of the fruit and landscape question the sense of one's own size when attempting to negotiate a spatial connection with the picture. As the viewer is unable to understand his spatial relationship to the work, he must continually refer back to himself. The inclusion in a beautiful, if imaginary, world, where often only realistic painting is valued, is disturbed. Karin Kneffel's painting is simultaneously realistic and unrealistic. One can hardly criticize the depiction of the objects, yet in the mere repetition of reality, these pictures offer resistance. They don't just show reality, the also show themselves as a picture.' (Daniel Spanke, Realismus ist anders, Distanz, Serie und Ornament als künstlerische Strategie im Werk von Karin Kneffel, in: Achim Sommer (ed.), Karin Kneffel, exhib.cat. Kunsthalle Emden, Cologne 2001)