by Dr. Barbara Aust-Wegemund, Art Historian

September 27 – November 7, 2015

Drostei Foundation
Dingstätte 23
25421 Pinneberg, Germany
Phone 0049- (0)4101- 21030
info@drostei.de
www.drostei.de

The Drostei Foundation opens the most comprehensive solo exhibition in Germany to showcase and honour Detlef Allenberg’s work on the occation of the artist’s 77th birthday.

Born in 1938 in Königsberg, East Prussia, Detlef Allenberg is one of North Germany's most prominent Graphic Art artist of his generation. Living in Pinneberg and Hamburg, he studied Fine Art at the Academy of Fine Arts Hamburg and Literature/German Philology at Hamburg University.

The title of the exhibition "Metamorphoses" aspects these motifs, presenting a fascinating selection of previously unreleased artworks, new paintings, embossed printings, etchings, sculptures from different periods of Allenberg’s fifty-year career.

Acting like an archaeologist, Detlef Allenberg is exploring straticulations during his creative working process, clearing or closing them, combining collage, painting, frottage and etching art to integrate in one work. While using found and selfmade objects to create relief elements, he is imprinting them on special paper, so that the shapes win a new identity in form and depth which is furthermore enhanced by the use of colors.

Inspired by the resulting structures, associations were produced that the artist reshaped into new pictorial worlds. Finally it is a process of construction and reduction. Allenberg enjoys every metamorphosis to investigate new, incomparably expansive areas of experience, in which the boundaries between the so-called real world and illusion become increasingly blurred.

Subconsciousness, phantasy, reality, irony and reflectiveness are linked together in Detlef Allenberg’s work. This is a characteristic feature of his entire oeuvre. Through this work, Allenberg questions which is the real world - that of night-time and dreams - or that of the waking state.

In conclusion, throughout Allenberg's life, his competent knowledge of all varieties of graphic techniques and methods, and his endeavors have given him the experience and invitations to exhibit in nearby hundred exhibitions, among them shows in Austria, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, The Netherlands and the US States.

Allenberg’s ourvre raises the question about recent changes in social constellations. How are people living together? How do they communicate? Which roles are they playing? Allenbergs hybrid figures, particulary his mythical bird creatures are surreal constructions between human and animal beings.

Staging like in a bizarre phantastic masquerade, these hybrid creatures became Detlef Allenberg’s constant companions. They are sharing multilevel identities. But who is the true personality behind the mask? If you want to explore it, take your time to visit the current retrospective show of this poet, philosoph, painter, comedian, sculptor, multilevel graphic artist and even - gentle anarchist.

Detlef Allenberg – Metamorphoses
Painting, Graphic Art, Sculpture

September, 27 – November, 7, 2015

Drostei Foundation
Dingstätte 23
25421 Pinneberg, Germany
Phone 0049 - (0)4101- 21030
Email: info@drostei.de
http://www.drostei.de

Wednesday to Sunday, 11 AM – 5 PM

Detlef Allenberg
http://www. allenbergart.de
Email: Detlef.Allenberg@t-online.de
Phone: 0049 - (0)4101 - 63107

Dr. Barbara Aust-Wegemund
Art Historian
barbara@arthistoryconsulting.de
http://www.arthistoryconsulting.de
Phone: 0049-(0)40- 8405 0355