2025.05.27 - 11.23

David Ostrowski:
Let me put it this way

Aranya Art Center North is pleased to present Let me put it this way, the first museum solo exhibition in China by German artist David Ostrowski, focusing on the artist’s signature F Series.

Introduction

Entering the exhibition space, the viewer encounters a series of large paintings made from irregular spray-painted lines on white or dark acrylic backgrounds, or even on raw canvas. Close inspection reveals that the canvas is peppered with pieces of scrap paper, tape, cotton remnants, and other everyday materials from the artist’s studio. Through a highly intuitive approach, David Ostrowski constructs pure form out of line, color, and gesture. The letter F in F Series is often interpreted as representing “failure” or “Fehlermalerei” (error painting), but the artist’s choice of this letter was purely out of intuition. These seemingly “failed” or “erratic” visual experiments in fact amount to a rethinking and doubting of the forms of painting, satirical deconstructions of the traditions and authority of painting.

The exhibition title Let me put it this way further breaks down the solemnity of the contemporary art exhibition in a casual manner. The exhibition employs an unconventional design, with paintings hung haphazardly around the space to achieve a three-dimensional presentation. In this way, Ostrowski’s paintings constitute multiple meanings according to different viewing paths and spatial constructs.

This exhibition is organized by Assistant Curator Gao Liangjiao and Associate Curator Wu Yiyang at the Aranya Art Center.

Installation Views

About the Artist

David Ostrowski

Born in 1981 in Cologne; lives and works in Cologne.

David Ostrowski studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under Albert Oehlen. Ostrowski is a professor for painting at the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe since 2022. Selected solo exhibitions include Sprüth Magers, New York (2024), Fig., Tokyo and Ramiken, New York (both 2023), Sprüth Magers, Berlin (2021), Avant-Garde Institute, Warsaw and Jir Sandel, Copenhagen (both 2020), Sundogs, Paris (2019) etc. Selected group exhibitions include Akademie der Künste, Berlin (2021), Aishti Foundation, Beirut (2018), the Halle für Kunst & Medien, Graz and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2014) etc. His work is in numerous international public collections, such as Aishti Collection, Beirut; Arken Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen; Colección Jumex, Mexico City; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Louis Vuitton Collection, Paris etc.