Welcome dear friends and guests of the EINSTELLUNGSRAUM e.V., thankyou very much, dear Stefan Oppermann and Simon Starke, for the interesting exhibition.
At 9 p.m. when it gets dark Simon Starke will show four of his Video Bagatelles, which have been selected or rather produced particularly for this exhibition and will say some explanatory words himself at the beginning.
 
In regards of the works of Stefan Oppermann I will ask for your attention for a few minutes.
 
With the mainly black und white drawings he formulates his position to the year theme of 'the paradise and the car'. This is already the 6th position here in EINSTELLUNGSRAUM  in 2005.
 
This thrilling given base  has been formulated - please allow me to remind 1. by the possibility of change of place (Torsten Bruch), 2. the reflection coming from a certain memory (Carl Vetter), 3. the about-face of values, hence the contrary (MNP), 4. the penetration of several layered plateaus (Annalena Grau) as well as 5.by the "paradise in the head" the virtuality (Siegfried Fuhrmann).
What now does Stefan Oppermann show us?
He calls his pictures inventions for a better world.  The catalog that goes with it can be purchased here.
His inventions appear as figured patterns, which seem to be easily readable. Some strange situation is presen-

ted there, for instance a rubberlike car, which seems to be drawing  along behind it a small human-like being like a tough mass. Surreal methods like Dal’ he does not use though, so he says. for this the things ("die dinge") are too real.
Furthermore: "it does not help to define something, because the on-looker will still do with it what he/she thinks.

How is that to be understood then - does Stefan Oppermann NOT form (define) something?

First of all he draws, puts signs with clear ourlines of black oilpen onto rough paper. So that the color trace opens up to a very fine dot field.
In the larger formats he translates this method in meticulous pen hatches. The drawings appear like final drawings at the end of a long designing process. But that is not how it is. I was allowed a glimpse into his sketch books. There one can see pencil drawings with a comparable defined line, more or less like final drawings from the head, as if he follows an inner order. In the drawings here on the wall the differentiation of the interior form is added by light and shadow areas, so that an illusion of three-dimensional comes into being.
Hence forms. Stefan Oppermann denounces though to integrate those seemingly so story-like forms into a definite space. There is no defined space, no defined light source. Forms in somewhere.
The creations remind of technical drawings, hence inventions, presented isolated like in a cataloge.
Even if Stefan Oppermann sees himself as being ironic, the drawings initiate a feeling of mania, with me anyways, of an almost compulsory precision that the drawer is obligated to, which canalizes his neverending flow of ideas. Insofar he words when he draws, even