Walter Libuda

Walter Libuda’s work is not easy to pin down. For one thing, because it is of almost unparalleled diversity. One searches in vain for media boundaries (leaving aside ‘technical’ forms of representation such as photography or video). Stage, picture frame, object, assemblage or sculpture – anything is possible; above all, however, this artist is a gifted painter and draughtsman. What Libuda depicts, of course, remains enigmatic; it is neither abstract nor representational, neither constructive nor realistic. At best, he borrows vague patterns from the surfaces of everyday life in order to incorporate them into his very particular visual worlds. Visual worlds that do not seem all that far removed from madness. Visual worlds that harbour a secret which cannot be universally recognised, deciphered or communicated. In a reality designed to recognise and decipher everything, and to feel compelled to communicate it without being asked, Libuda’s ‘mad’ reality seems like the exact opposite. Even the titles of the works offer no help here; the game of confusion continues within them. Where they purport to offer a foothold and a direction, they often enough turn out to be a chimera – or, at best, a clue leading to an understanding that is as vague as it is magical.

Biographical information
Walter Libuda, born in 1950, studied at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig (HGB) from 1973 to 1979, the last two years as a master student of Bernhard Heisig. He then worked as an assistant at the HGB and moved to Berlin in 1985. He has been a member of the Deutscher Künstlerbund since 1992 and a member of the Saxon Academy of Arts since 1998. His works have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions. He has been awarded the Fred Thieler Prize for Painting by the Berlinische Galerie and the Gerhard Altenbourg Prize by the Lindenau Museum Altenburg. Libuda lives in Schildow near Berlin.