Robin von Einsiedel’s (b. 1988) works include visual references, much like phrases in poetry, and notes in music; not to be read literally but for their openness to interpretation and combination. The work pulls together references from older paintings in art history, takes composition references from Holbein (The Ambassadors, 1533), Magritte (The Explanation, 1954), Markus Lüpertz, and also draws on contemporary references taken from the everyday life of contemporary culture, becoming a visual montage of personal and collective histories. These historical, iconic, moments, which you might get or unpick, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t; the specifics are important and hold value but the overall competition is more important and Von Einsiedel does not fetishise these individual references.
His works form compositions of visual poetry which consider how we digest information in our day-to-day lives: images thrown together, seeing references side by side, quick-flash images of disposable news, a hallucinogenic soup, a visual dream where references make sense together at one time, but not at another. The images presented to us comment on how we consume music, for example. We listen to music through the internet, with less emphasis on specific genres but a much greater breadth of influences within shorter time spans, and smaller spaces.
There are conceptual parameters around his work but they can also be seen through an abstracted lens; there are figures but the paintings amount to more than figurative, more than abstract. There is an underlying belief thread through the works that painting can be only read on a very core level; the paintings can’t be broken down because the essence is then destroyed. The references are hard-edged but they can only be seen together, they are compelling, drawing you in through sardonic wit.
