Norbert Schwontkowski’s practice has once been characterized as an “existentialism without pathos”, due to his ability to evoke impressions of the profundity in the banal. At once, his paintings are humorous as much as they induce anxiety and a sense of melancholia. Fascinated with the poetry of everyday life and the surreal qualities of nature and cities, Schwontkowski’s paintings can be seen as dreamscapes that act as windows into an everchanging pictorial universe. Elusive and secretive, they are paintings of anyplace and anytime, becoming concrete in the eye of the beholder.
Although tending to gloomy surfaces, Schwontkowski wasn’t a stranger to radiant colors. Once again, in the overwhelming enormity of the cityscape, people appear as tiny ants in the face of the universe. Finally, the poet’s painter veils his scenes from the city life in a foggy atmosphere—always on the move, Schwontkowski repeatedly came back to concepts of transition and places such as hotels and trains, those places most enveloped in mystery.
The late artist lived and worked between Bremen and Berlin with months-long travels and work stays in all over Asia and Australia. He was a Professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Hamburg 2005-2009 and at the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Braunschweig 1991-2001. CFA represented Schwontkowski from 2004 until his untimely death in 2013 and has represented his estate ever since. Over the last years, a travelling retrospective was held in Kunstmuseum Bonn (2019) and Kunsthalle Bremen (2020), appropriately titled Some of My Secrets, and Kunstmuseum Den Haag (2020), under the name of Everyone Wants to Go Home. Other selected solo exhibitions include Kolumba Museum Cologne (2013), Kunstverein Hamburg (2013), Rubell Family Collection Miami (2006), Brandenburgische Kunstsammlungen Cottbus (2005), Kunsthalle Erfurt (2005), Kunsthalle Bremen (2004). Schwontkowski took part at the celebrated 4th Berlin Biennale “Of Mice and Men” curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Ali Subotnick and Massimiliano Gioni.
