Member-only story
Philipp Kremer: With Lovers
at Nicodem Gallery, Los Angeles (through February 1)
Reviewed by Eve Wood
Imagine a faceless orgy, a concupiscence of bodies — colliding, embracing, penetrating, wherein the entirety of the surrounding picture plane is reduced to a senseless expanse of writhing and roiling flesh. In Philipp Kremer’s work, the notion of desire is determined by an exploration into genderless ideation. Sex is not strictly sex, nor is this beauteous lovemaking, but an electrified and energized landscape of human intersections — hand in hand, arm over arm, face into face, thigh across thigh, torsos twisting and contorting in a vaguely nihilistic expanse where no two people ever seem to truly connect.
These are not so much paintings that explore the exuberance and passion of being alive as they are works that privilege anonymity. These paintings are sensationally modern and reflect the ennui of a dying race where our base instincts override our need to be seen and understood. Kremer’s lovers derive from their surroundings as there is no clear delineation between their corporeal selves and the brightly colored rooms they occupy. As viewers we long for familiarity, for a point of entry, a trace of human kindness, but the fact Kremer’s figures have no discernible features forces us as viewers to focus entirely on their actions, while also frustrating our desire to sympathize or identify with them.
