Galerie Thomas Hühsam is primarily concerned with the presentation of special contemporary art. It was founded in 1990 by Thomas Hühsam in Offenbach and exhibits modern works with special approaches and special ideas that have not yet existed in this form. At ARTMUC 2024, Thomas Hühsam will be presenting works by the artists Otto Freii, Khalid Dayani and Markus Eck.
The owner of the gallery worked with the German-Afghan Khalid Dayani on a major project in Frankfurt 30 years ago. There they pressed 400 cars, painted them gold and presented them for 6 weeks on the Opernplatz. Khalid Dayani has mainly specialized in large-scale projects and works with the materials metal, scrap metal and scrap, which he recycles and gives them a refined appearance by painting them gold. The aim of his artistic work is to arouse the curiosity of "Homo sapiens", which is why he has given the series of projects exhibited here the name "Polis homo sapiens". Polis comes from the Greek and means city.
Khalid Dayani artistically explores the question of how to bring the motto "Every end has a beginning" to the curious viewer of his art in an experience-oriented way. With his art, he wants to convey the message that it is not about accumulating more and more, but rather about quality instead of quantity. He uses different materials to design his exhibits and tries to give meaning to even small, inconspicuous objects that seem like "nothing".
Otto Freii produces artworks in digital painting. For his artworks, he takes photos of buildings, edits the photos digitally, prints them out and then paints over them with acrylic paints. His art has also brought Khalid Dayani together with his artist friend, the copper sculptor Markus Eck, whose works are also exhibited in the gallery. The two have worked together artistically to create a sculpture entitled "compressio humanitas", which can also be found in the exhibition. The idea for this joint work came from gallery owner Thomas Hühsam. He suggested to Khalid Dayani, who does not have his own workshop, that he should go to Markus Eck's workshop. His idea was for the two of them to create a joint product together, to build a bridge, so to speak, as Christians and Muslims working together.
The sculpture "Compressio humanitas", which emerged from this joint work, symbolizes the compressed humanity that we find in today's society, where society is squeezed together and forced into templates in order to make things happen. There is another work by Markus Eck in the exhibition, the copper sculpture "Satisfy". Markus Eck is not interested in creating a portrait, but in expressing the feeling of satisfaction that the artist feels when working on his artwork and that the artist and gallery owner experience when exhibiting the finished product. The sculpture "Satisfy" was produced in mixed media from 1 mm thin copper sheet in several layers using the fusion welding technique. Markus Eck learned copper working from scratch, later trained as a blacksmith, coppersmith and copper sculptor and later completed additional training as a stone sculptor.