Benedikt Leonhardt, Alexander Klaubert: A while to move

„The voice that speaks is not your voice. It is a changing, adapting voice – sometimes kind, sometimes disturbing.“* Alexander Klaubert’s works perform ambivalence on all levels. They are based on a preoccupation with inscribed patterns of behavior that can, perhaps even must, be overcome. Flowing soft textiles solidify in epoxy resin and at the same time experience a renewed lightness when they float delicately in the gallery space. Stainless steel finds expression in filigree, branching forms. As a vibrating momentum, his performance allows emotions to be physically experienced. A game with stasis and vibration, in which Klaubert challenges us to confront our own inner contradictions. Benedikt Leonhardt’s paintings show narrative tendencies for the first time. Intimations of bodies, scenes, family photos that allow us to search for clues to something recognizable. Individual white pigments lie like a veil over the canvases. Sometimes as a fine spray, sometimes as a dense, almost impermeable surface. Leonhardt abstracts radically, stimulating the desire to recognize and find a foothold in his paintings. He gently, almost subtly, nuances the transitions between closeness and distance, narrative and emotion. Stimulating, but blurred enough to make our perception pulsate. “A while to move” allows us to participate in the reflections on intimate memories, emotional states and the struggle for knowledge about one’s own being. The extraordinary sensitivity of the works by Benedikt Leonhardt and Alexander Klaubert makes it possible for opposites to flow into form and for ambivalence to be recognized as sovereignty. * Text excerpt from Alexander Klaubert’s performance “Out of the house from one day to another”, 2024 [Text by Laura Gerstmann, 2024] Performance Alexander Klaubert: Out of the house from one day to another. Concept, Choreography: Alexander Klaubert Performer: Francis Kussatz, Caroline Beach Music: Klaubert & Kussatz Music Co-Producing & Mixing: Heather Karing Audio Engineer: Maxim Schmidthals Benedikt Leonhardt (*1984 in Leipzig) lives and works in Leipzig. He studied painting at the HGB – Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig and graduated in 2014 as a Meisterschüler (postgraduate studies) of Prof. Astrid Klein. His paintings have for example been shown in the exhibition “Jetzt! Young Painting in Germany”, at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Kunstsammlung Chemnitz/Museum Gunzenhauser, Museum Wiesbaden (2019) and the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg (2020) as well as the Museum der Bildenden Künste Leipzig (2022). He was awarded the LVZ Art Prize in 2017, accompanied by a solo exhibition at the Museum der bildenden Künste (MdbK) Leipzig. His works are represented in numerous public and private collections, such as Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig; Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen; Museum Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden; Hildebrand Collection, Leipzig; Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz; Fundatie Zwolle, Zwolle, Netherlands; Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden; LVZ Collection, Leipzig. Alexander Klaubert (*1991 in Wittenberg) lives and works in Berlin. Since 2022 he has been a Meisterschüler (postgraduate studies) of Isabel Lewis in the class for performative arts at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig (HGB). He has received the State Postgraduate Scholarship / Sächsisches Landesstipendium since 2022. Alexander Klaubert is part of the artist collective “otc – Observant Think Conversation” (formerly “Law of Life-LoL”). Klaubert’s works have for example already been shown at Wilhelm Hallen, Berlin (2023), Marburger Kunstverein and Kunstverein Göttingen (2022), ZAK – Zentrum für aktuelle Kunst Berlin (2020), Arles les Rencontres de la Photographie (2019) and Diskurs Festival, Gießen (2019). His works are in the collection of the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, among others.