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Out of the serie: HOLZWEGE 2022




The publication 'Holzwege' (1949/1950) is the title of the fifth volume of Heidegger's Collected Works and contains six lectures Heidegger gave between 1936 and 1946. His thesis is that art creates an open space in the midst of being, an openness in which everything is different from normal. Art makes visible the inaccessible part of the world. She reveals a secret without affecting it. Heidegger has walked a lot in the Black Forest. Now a hiking trail, the Rundweg, leads past his hut in the forest near Totdnauberg. (Philosopher Joannes Kesenne, letter to the artist)

As early as 2004, Peter Weidenbaum worked on a series of paintings that originated in the Czech forests. Today he is showing a series of new paintings at Jiri Svestka gallery. With the title of the exhibition 'Holzwege' the Belgian artist Weidenbaum refers to the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. A not impeccable figure in literature. In his publication 'Holzwege', Heidegger refers to the origin of the work of art and a kind of truth around or in the work of art. Of course, a philosopher has a different attitude to this than the artist. For the artist, this path is an imaginary walk through what can arise in his studio. New paths and choices in a world in which we are overwhelmed by images. Today, the new media provide such a number of images that we can no longer correctly estimate what is personally relevant to us. For Weidenbaum, the image itself does not come first. But it is the action of the painting and the idea around it that leads to the final work of art.

‘In the wake of Romanticism and the Czech landscape painters František Kaván and Ferdinand Engelmüller, I visited the nature reserve of Prachovské skály. I follow the path; the path runs through the forest. It has already been walked. I just have to follow the path, without thinking. This gave me the freedom to be lost in thought. Suddenly the path ends. What was once a road is now just brushwood. The trees here are like chaos. There is a smell of fallen leaves. The smell of turpentine. The forest becomes paint, light becomes color. The white stretched canvas. From here on I have to decide for myself how to proceed.’

Belgian artist Peter Weidenbaum paints ‘The Valley’ a painting from the Holzwege series in 2020. Here we see Weidenbaum at work while talking about Gustave Courbet, and his way of painting.

Movie on youtube: Weidenbaum paints a Landscape