Monument Proposals

About

"In response to the recent developments calling for the removal of colonial statues in South Africa and the UK, that culminated in the removal of Confederate statues in the US; I am currently producing a series of ‘fictitious monument’ sculptures and paintings as that allows for an intensification of play with symbols, signs, references and styles as a way to address issues around temporality in oscillation, hovering between commemoration and possibility, historic events and possible refolding of our present with other narratives.

Modernist symbols in combination with ephemeral materials are used as the signifiers for our current times, fragmented and rearranged to suggest a continuous re-examining of Modernisms legacy, and building on the notion of modernism as an ideology and a misleading falsified category of homogeneity."

Günther Herbst was born in South Africa where he obtained his first degree at the Johannesburg University in 1991. He moved to Germany in 1992 and worked as a Matte-painter and commercial artist for several film and animation studios in Berlin and Cologne. In 1995 he came to London to continue his practice and study at Goldsmiths University of London where he obtained his Masters Degree in 2002. In October 2016 he was awarded a Scholarship to commence his PhD at the University for the Creative Arts Canterbury.

Herbst exhibits internationally and his work is represented in all major public collections in South Africa as well as UK public collections and international private collections. He was nominated for the Jerwood Contemporary Painters Award in 2008 and was selected for the John Moores 24 Exhibition of Contemporary Painting. Günther Herbst lives and works in London.  

You can see more of his work here: www.guntherherbst.com and on instagram @guntherdh63

You can view this exhibition online at www.londonartsboard.blogspot.co.uk, on Facebook or in person on the corner of Vestry Road and Peckham Road, Camberwell, London SE5.