Christian Holze combines different artistic categories to create hybrids: Painting, 3D graphics, photography, sculpture and installation. Exploring and blurring the boundaries of these categories is just as essential to him as the fusion of analog and digital working practices.
His research topics are the interfaces between art, technology and business. In particular, he focuses on the relationship between art and art marketing. In his work, he not only explores the connections between these three subject areas, but also poses questions about authorship, commodification and copying in the visual arts. Furthermore, Holze's works connect the viewer's art-historical memory with the omnipresence of the commodity image world in the digital age, disguising themselves as meta-products.
In the virtual world, masterpieces of antiquity such as the Laocoon group in the Vatican Museums or the baroque “David” by Gian Lorenzo Bernini are experiencing a revival and are being marketed in other contexts. Web portals sell them as 3D scans for computer animations, for advertising agencies or film and television productions. The same applies to famous paintings such as Raphael's “School of Athens”. On the basis of such commercially used images, the artist develops computer graphics, which he then processes and alienates in simulated space using various methods. The sculpture of the Farnese bull dominates the first exhibition room of the NEWCOMER Gallery. Here the artist works with the motif in two ways, firstly as a painter and secondly as a sculptor. In both versions, as a painting and as a sculpture from the 3D printer, he doubles the work and combines the part rotated by 180 degrees with his usual view to form a single unit; the copy slips into the work, as it were.
Christian Holze addresses the issue of copyright and branding through the use of digital watermarks, such as those used by online image databases. They establish ownership and authorship.
The fashion world uses logos and brand names to increase market value. Price determination and value enhancement are also linked to artists' names in art. In revealing his artistic practice of sampling and transforming existing visual material, Christian Holze refers to the product character of his artworks and at the same time claims authenticity, as is the case for NFT artworks with a certificate of ownership.
The artist conceived the “Meeting Room” exhibition especially for the NEWCOMER Gallery. He has turned the three exhibition rooms into meeting points in order to make the artistic connection between the themes of his research accessible to visitors.
In the NEWCOMER KWS workshop, the artist specifically addresses the meeting culture of companies. Christian Holze's art and “daily work at KWS” will enter into a direct dialog and will sometimes blend together almost imperceptibly.
“From now on, when KWS colleagues meet, discuss and work there, it will happen directly in Christian Holze's art!” said Stephan Krings, Head of Global Marketing and Communications at KWS, in his welcoming address at the opening. Dr. Bettina Ruhrberg, Director of the Mönchehaus Museum in Goslar, explained the works shown in the exhibition in conversation with the artist.
Christian Holze, born in Naumburg in 1988, studied media art, sculpture and painting at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig (2011 to 2019), at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (2015/2016) and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg (2019 to 2022). He was a guest student of Prof. Anselm Reyle (Hamburg) and a master student in the class for installation and space of Prof. Joachim Blank (Leipzig). He has been represented in numerous solo and group exhibitions since 2012. In 2018 he took part in the Exhibition and Residence Exchange Program of Chung-Ang University Seoul/South Korea. Christian Holze lives and works in Leipzig.
For the year 2022, he will be awarded the Goslar Kaiserring Scholarship, which has been awarded by the Verein zur Förderung Moderner Kunst since 1984 and has been sponsored by the AKB Foundation in Einbeck since 2014. As part of this scholarship award, Christian Holze opened his exhibition “Time Sleep” at the Mönchehaus Museum in Goslar in September 2022.
A catalog will be published for both exhibitions “Time Sleep” for Goslar and “Meeting Room” for Einbeck. Christian Holze will present it at the Kulturkrafttage festival, which takes place from March 17 to 19 at PS. Speicher, on Sunday, March 19, from 2.30 pm in the NEWCOMER KWS Art Lounge. NEWCOMER will be open on this day from 1 to 5 pm.
The NEWCOMER KWS Art Lounge is regularly open on Wednesdays from 10 am to 1 pm, Fridays from 3 pm to 6 pm and Saturdays from 10 am to 1 pm.