Galerie Mollwo , Basel Riehen (CH) | 18.5.2014 - 29.6.2014  | Thitz Solo Show | lecture out of the new book from  Wolfram Malte Fues with drawings by Thitz  

During    Art Basel  the Gallery opens daily from 10 am – 7 pm .

Thitz – Urban Visions

The cities that Thitz portrays are covered by a dense web of lines and colours. They reflect a speed of life and interaction that increasingly determines our being, often without our awareness. In recent years our daily lives have speeded up enormously; the tempo on our information high- ways has long since ceased to be measured in seconds. Nowadays nanoseconds decide on the DAX or Dow Jones. Personality profiles are designed and defined by computer programs. People are no longer needed for the purpose — no interlocutors, no dialogue. Our computer input is so gigantic that computer- aided networking of this information now determines our reality much more than we suspect.

In this world, cultures meet, megacities grow, and a self-learning communication system spans the entire globe. This is the present Thitz has been portraying for years. But he produces no dark visions. His pictures are complex, showing the full ambivalence of reality. They hold up a mirror to the speed and complexity, the coexistence, sadness and loneliness of people — but also to the diversity and new opportunities that cheek-by-jowl cultures offer. Our reality is ambivalent. Appearances are always deceptive; the artist sets out to expose them. Thitz does not resolve the puzzle of his pictures. The world as he sees it is too complicated, too complex for a one-dimensional explanation. Thus the phrase ‘Art saves the world’ from the same picture is wishful thinking, a vision, a wonderful idea. We write our own story about it.

And, of course, there are the bags, Thitz’s ‘unique selling proposition’. The bag is his trademark, and to this day it naturally plays an important role. It is a surface for his painting, an important component of his collages, and, over and again, a herald from foreign lands and cultures. With the bag, the artist travels the world; he finds it everywhere, in China, in Japan, in the USA. The messages it brings reflect   the colourfulness and diversity of our world and the people in it. The bag stands for the world of con- sumption and passes on messages. It conceals secrets, revealing only what we want others to see.

The perspective on the world provided by the painter Thitz is a very private one; yet it is borne by a vision that ‘art saves the world’. We would dearly love to believe it. Dr. Stephan Mann Director Museum Goch

Galerie Mollwo | Zeitgenössiche Kunst | Gartengasse 10 | CH–4125 Riehen/Basel | Tel./Fax +41 (0)61 641 16 78 | Opening hours: Mo–Fr 02pm – 06pm, Sa 11pm – 05pm and by appointment
The gallery is directly opposite the Fondation Beyeler

Galerie Mollwo, Basel