(...) That’s how I experience it, too; every time I come in here I feel slightly ‘unsettled’. Not only because I have to contemplate what I’ll take with me to the next event. But the way in which Brixy always manages, every year without fail, to capture a ‘new world-drama’ on the canvas is, I believe, also very special. As a viewer, you really need to make the effort to explore each individual work in detail. To see what has changed. How Brixy has succeeded again with these new works to create abstract spaces. How the sheer boldness of his painting creates secrets, concealing even how each picture was made. I, too, am constantly surprised and have to ask, ‘Tell me, how did you do that again?’ What emerges here time and again is absolutely fascinating and actually demonstrates how Brixy reinvents himself, every year anew. I believe this is a criterion that also says something about how good an artist is.

An additional quality of Brixy, one that he has already referred to himself, is that he invites guest artists to exhibit here at the Altes Pumpwerk. This year it’s Patricia Waller. There is a fitting quote from the author Heinrich Böll. He believed that every artist had to “have the right dose of anarchy in him if he wants to be a good artist.” I think that when it comes to the artistic development of Patricia Waller, it was somehow a pretty major dose. Her works are markedly provocative and highly unusual. Not simply because of the traditional bias such techniques face: she’s a woman, she crochets, she knits. When you delve further into her catalogue you will discover that the tone of the art critics with regard to this subject has, thank God, changed completely now and even such prestigious names as Simon Bourgeois have commented positively on these kinds of techniques. Because, for one, such techniques have an anticipatory element; for instance, in how the needle has been used here. Another anticipatory element is evident in how Patricia Waller attempts to address topical issues. (...)

For more on the laudatory speech, click here