René Böll – “Why poets in poor times?”
Liu Xiaochun
René Böll’s Far Eastern sensibility
When I look at René Böll’s paintings, especially his ink paintings, I feel his strong desire to deeply penetrate and grasp the spirit of Chinese culture. This attitude is completely different from that of other Western artists who have explored Far Eastern art. Artists such as Hans Hartung, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Jackson Pollock, Pierre Soulages, Antonio Tapies and others used Far Eastern art as a kind of quarry, allowing themselves to be very freely and idiosyncratically influenced by the style of calligraphy and painting, but hardly concerned themselves with the ink technique and the philosophical background. As a Chinese, I see in their art less the spirit of Far Eastern culture than the spirit of Western culture. In their creative process, they cut up Far Eastern art and pick out the elements they need according to their taste. This was an important moment in the development process of modern Western art. Without this selective perception of Far Eastern art, those painters in European and North American art would hardly have produced these accomplished artistic creations.
Because René Böll has not left his Western cultural background, but still wants to immerse himself in Chinese culture, I see him as a special ambassador for the exchange of Chinese and German culture.
Liu Xiaochun, Beijing, November 1995
Vite
René Böll – painter & graphic artist, born 1948 in Cologne.
Self-taught studies in drawing and painting since 1963. From 1966 lessons with Bernhard Müller-Feyen and from 1967 study of painting and printmaking (especially lithography) in Cologne and Vienna. First works with Chinese and Japanese ink around 1970. From 1975 to 1988 founder and publishing director of Lamuv Verlag. 1985 Editor of the six-volume edition of Vincent van Gogh’s complete letters. Freelance painter again since 1988. From 1993 renewed work with Chinese ink. Since 1999 etchings and portfolio works. Since 2008 works with silverpoint, ink and watercolor on poems by Friedrich Hölderlin, among others.
Study trips to, among others: Chile (Atacama Desert) China (Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts), Ecuador (including the Galápagos Archipelago), Ireland, Kenya and Russia.
Since 1972, numerous solo and group exhibitions in museums, art galleries and galleries in Chile, China (e.g. 1996 Kunsthalle Chinas in Beijing, Kunsthalle Shaanxi in Xi’an, Kunsthalle
Shandong in Jinan and Dragon Museum in Weifang and in 2002 at the German Embassy in Beijing – together with Gu Gan); Germany (including Galerie Ariadne, Cologne, Diözesan-Bibliothek Köln; LVR-Landesmuseum in Bonn); Ecuador; France (including Maison de Heidelberg, Montpellier, Goethe-Institut Toulouse); Ireland (including Goethe-Institut, Dublin); Japan (Kyoto, Municipal Museum); Netherlands; Sweden; Switzerland; Czech Republic and USA.
Symposia, training courses and lectures on Chinese ink, colors and painting techniques from the Middle Ages to the present day. On the Irish monastery island of Skellig Michael, on the painter Paul Klee (in collaboration with the Museum Rosengart in Lucerne), and on the Irish children’s cemeteries (Cillíní).
1997 Study trip to northwest China, the Pamir Mountains and the Takla Makan and Gobi deserts, with the support of the “North Rhine-Westphalia Foundation” for Art and Culture, accompanied by the Chinese artists Gu Gan and Zhang Guo Long. Work on joint paintings with Gu Gan. In 1998 the only foreign artist to participate in the 1st International Biennale of Ink Painting, Shenzhen, China. Since October 2002 Professor h.c. of the Chinese art academy Beijing Nationality University.