NIBELUNGENLIED Genia Chef

This medieval heroic saga has famously been depicted in film, theatre, the operas of Richard Wagner, as well as in sculptures, graphic representations and paintings. 

The Russian artist Genia Chef, who has lived in the West for decades, is fascinated by the tragic violence of this epic; the eternal drama of love-hate, loyalty and betrayal, power games and battles, which through their rich contrasts are as if made for graphic interpretation. He draws with bird feathers and ink on papier déchiré prepared with tea stains and, as the art critic Mark Gisbourne writes in his foreword to the exhibition catalogue, uses „controlled chance“ for his elaborate picture cycle. “Chef’s drawings are less about storytelling but rather about illuminating a world.”