ROME — First, visit Jochen Klein: After the Light at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome (MACRO) made me feel lost. The exhibition features paintings by Klein with contributions from artists such as Julie Ault, Thomas Eggerer, Wolfgang Tillmans, Ull Hohn and Amelie Von Wulffen since they knew Klein. It’s a diverse group of artworks that seem to struggle to form a cohesive message.
Contextualizing Klein’s work is not easy. In a relatively short time, Klein moved from traditional painting, which he had learned at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, to the conceptual approach of the artist collective Group Material when he moved to New York in 1994. Two years later he moved to London and began developing the dreamy paintings that have become his signature style. He died of AIDS-related complications in 1997, aged 30.
Visiting the living room reminded me of a well-known photograph of the artist taken by photographer Wolfgang Tillmans in 1997 when the two were partners. In the photo, Klein is shown soaking in a bathtub with water in his neck. He looks pensive, lost in thought; his eyes half-closed, he does not meet the gaze of the camera. It’s an incredibly intimate photo, taken in a private moment that we’re allowed to peek into.
The ambivalence that pervades Tillmans’ portrayal aptly conveys the feeling some critics have had when approaching Klein’s work. His episodic departure and return to painting have been interpreted as inconsistent and contradictory. But, as artist Julie Ault notes in a text presented in the exhibition, Klein’s role as a painter and her experience within Group Material should not be read in opposition. The artist’s paintings of luxurious Bavarian palace interiors he made in the early 1990s – one of which is the highlight of this exhibition – were early investigations into the very power structures that Klein challenged with its site-specific installations, made in collaboration with the artist Thomas Eggerer a few years later.
The dreamlike scenes of Klein’s later paintings, which he continued to do until his sudden death, are a striking combination of political commentary and the sensuality of painting. Once I figured that out, the other artworks of after the light made sense, and everything finally fell into place. In Klein’s work, the critical structure and the pure pleasure of painting are inseparable.
Jochen Klein: After the Light continues at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome (MACRO) (Via Nizza 138, Rome, Italy) until August 27. The exhibition was co-curated by Luca Lo Pinto and Wolfgang Tillmans.
