Franziska Klotz, Fritz Bornstück – Doppelspiel
Two Berlin-based artistic personalities who each, in their own way, explore the traces of our present.
As the year draws to a close, 69salon by KORNFELD invites you to a special dialogue:
In the exhibition “Doppelspiel”, the painter Franziska Klotz and the painter and ceramicist Fritz Bornstück meet for the first time – two Berlin-based artistic personalities who each, in their own way, explore the traces of our present.
Franziska Klotz’s painting is physical, probing, multi-layered. A tactile, exploratory way of painting lets objects, animals and figures emerge from the in-between. Her works speak of perception, memory and the tenderness of the moment.
Fritz Bornstück, in turn, brings the small relics of everyday life to life in his oil paintings and ceramic sculptures – furniture, vessels, fragments of technology – which gain a new presence infused with poetic melancholy and subtle humour.
In their interplay, a double game unfolds between closeness and distance, light and shadow, seriousness and a wink. The exhibition also marks the opening of the first winter salon at 69salon by KORNFELD – with a Christmas tree filled with small works and editions by artists who are friends of the gallery, and a book presentation by Marianne Ludes (“Trio mit Tiger”*).
At the end of the year, the exhibition Doppelspiel at 69salon by KORNFELD presents for the first time paintings by Franziska Klotz in dialogue with paintings and ceramics by Fritz Bornstück.
The works of Franziska Klotz explore questions of community, vulnerability, and the possibility of taking a stance in a fractured present. Her painting is devoted to nuances and opens up spaces in which perception, doubt, and social reality resonate with one another. Observation, memory, and feeling merge into a physical, probing form of painting that brings objects, animals, and figures into view. Beyond motif, her works speak of states of being—of the in-between, of appearing and fading, of moments that elude a clear narrative.
The paintings and sculptures of Fritz Bornstück focus on the remnants of human civilisation. Not the great, spectacular ruins, but the small, overlooked things: the scrap of civilisation, overgrown by nature, animated by small and tiniest living creatures. We look into a world of found objects from other times. Relics of the everyday—such as furniture, vessels, or what was once the most cutting-edge technology—gain a new, poetically melancholic presence in his oil paintings and ceramic objects. These still lifes radiate a sensuous pensiveness that is offset by surprising combinations with subtle humour—as if the weight of the themes were to find a new lightness in painting.
The two artists are archaeologists of our everyday lives. In their juxtaposition, a double game emerges that does not rely on contrasting opposites but—despite all differences in images and motifs—brings what they have in common to the fore. Franziska Klotz and Fritz Bornstück share a belief in the power of painting and in the idea that both the great and the small issues of our time reveal themselves in small things, even if approached from different directions. The uncovering, layering, and overpainting in Franziska Klotz’s work is countered by Fritz Bornstück’s collecting, preserving, and staging. In the interplay of their works, a dialogue unfolds about closeness and distance, material and memory, the autonomy of images, and the power of painting. Perhaps this interplay is also a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the season—a play of light and shadow, melancholy and humour that makes winter glow.
Our exhibition with these two Berlin-based painters also marks the opening of our first winter salon. Fitting for the season, a Christmas tree is present in the exhibition, in and beneath which small works and editions by friends and companions of the gallery come together: Tammam Azzam, Jay Gard, Philip Grözinger, Dieter Jung, Christopher Lehmpfuhl, David Meskhi, Valentina Murabito, Johanna Reich, Shanee Roe, Susanne Roewer, and Martin Spengler. In addition, Marianne Ludes will present her book Trio mit Tiger.
Doppelspiel is therefore more than just an exhibition of two painters: it is a dialogue in colour, an invitation to come together, and a staging of the pre-Christmas season—between contemplation and contradiction, between radiance and composure.
Franziska Klotz (born 1979 in Dresden) studied at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee, was awarded the Max Ernst Scholarship of the City of Brühl, and, at the invitation of the Goethe-Institut, spent several months in 2015 and 2018 as a fellow of the German Cultural Academy Tarabya in Istanbul. Her works have been shown at the 56th October Salon in Belgrade (2016), the Fanø Art Museum in Denmark (2017), Hamburger Bahnhof (2018), and the Städtische Galerie Dresden, which is dedicating a solo exhibition titled Sur-Faces to her until January 2025. Her works are held in numerous private collections as well as in the collection of the Städtische Galerie Dresden.
Fritz Bornstück (born 1982 in Weilburg/Lahn) studied fine art in Mainz with Friedemann Hahn and later at the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin, among others with Leiko Ikemura and Björn Dahlem. In 2009 he completed his studies as a master student of Thomas Zipp and subsequently received the prestigious scholarship at De Ateliers in Amsterdam. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions in Copenhagen, Paris, Zurich, Stockholm, Munich, Frankfurt, and Berlin, and most recently at the Museum im Kleihues-Bau in Kornwestheim. His works are held in institutions such as the Arken Museum in Copenhagen and in numerous private collections.
