Steve VIEZENS | Frühstücken! Vorlesen! Zähneputzen!

Opening: Saturday, 1 March 2025, 5 - 9 pm

It’s a new morning, and the rooster's crow signals the start of the race. You wake up bursting with endless possibility, doors to countless parallel futures swinging open. Yet, you are not alone—your inner chaos must coexist with that of your family, colleagues, and society at large. Together, you must sustain what was built yesterday while continuing to construct tomorrow. Thus, you reach out to start the metronome of Frühstücken! Vorlesen! Zähneputzen! (Have breakfast! Read stories! Brush teeth!), and the collective symphony begins.

A major theme in Viezens’ most recent series is time and change. Here, time is anything but linear— it bends, crumbles, collides, and occasionally does somersaults. Childlike doodles coexist with ancient architecture and 18th-century French caricatures. This collision of past and present reflects the fluidity of change in the face of tension between order and chaos, as well as the continuous redefinition of history. Butterflies and beetles, two recurring motifs in Viezens’ work, serve as metaphors for transformation under different conditions. The butterfly undergoes metamorphosis from within, an internal shift that results in an entirely new form—beautiful, delicate, and celebrated. The beetle, on the other hand, endures external pressures, persisting in the face of destruction and change.

This complex, pulsating ambiguity is mirrored in Viezens’ artistic process. His work hops across the categories of painting, drawing, and printmaking, refusing to settle down. The line—sharp, definitive—suggests control and structure, while paint, with its fluid layers and shifting transparencies, resists confinement. With the added element of collage and the juxtaposition of highly realistic painting with two-dimensional sketches, these works reject the divide between academic art and ‘amateur handicraft.’ Instead, Viezens offers a counter-narrative where all visual forms are equally meaningful, beautiful, and valuable.