Anton Funck: against the sun

4 mar 202315 apr 2023

against the sun is Anton Funck’s engaged reflection on the cycle all humans partake in. Once born into the world we enter the human condition. Our privileges wary wildly but we know, for now, that our physical existence will end at some point. Our bodies will give up.

Resent close encounters with mortality made Funck acutely aware, and curious about the relation between body and being. The theater of consciousness. Ancient biology, the idea of self, free will – or lack thereof, the loss of control physically and mentally, our ability or inability to map and navigate our own journeys are the outset for Funck’s contribution to this most fundamental ongoing human exploration.

The works in the exhibition wary in sizes and materials; large elaborate paintings on handmade paper mounted on board, small sparse oil stick works on paper, monotype prints and exhaustive watercolors. While the works explore the potentials of a variety of media, they are all interconnected, revolving celestial bodies. A recurring motif in Funck’s practice is the orb, it takes on various meanings; a sun, a moon, a cycle, a journey, a meditation, a beginning, and an end. In against the sun, the orb travels through many of the works in different incarnations, but this time not only in relation to other heavenly bodies or existential references, but in relation to the human body. A new compositional element for Funck, as the human body was formerly only present in the work in the spatial relation between work and viewer. Abstracted like an alphabet the body is present in the exhibition. That fantastic and annoying flesh machine we all inhabit. Briming with potential and failure. Funck works into the physical connection, raising the question of a non-dual relationship. Perhaps there is potential in failure and vice versa? Our time-ticking-DNA-based-body-bomb may be the enigma. Not interpretating the world in classical opposites of good or bad, but rather as holistic experience of being. Mortality as catalyst.

”In the last resort, every shadow is also the child of light, and only those who have known the light and the dark, have seen war and peace, rise and fall, have truly lived their lives.”

– Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday

Kilde: V1 Gallery