BERLIN.- The more we are immersed in our own time, the more we are subject to its prejudices and influence. Forms flow, swell, sink or transform into one another, but not everyone has the eye to notice. This thought serves as the starting point for an extensive reflection on the reception of art, and the role of the artist, since the advent of modernism. Early modernism's crisis of language, where inherited words failed to capture the new experiences of modern life, inevitably spilled over into how art was received and interpreted. It is this field of tension that Thomas Scheibitz's Figuren unter Einfluss ("Figures Under Influence") navigates, an exhibition that, in the broadest terms, conceives of us as figures under the influence of our environments and their effects.
Historically, the contest over who holds the authority to interpret words and images is particularly visible in 19th-century discourse. While Victor Hugo emphatically proclaimed art to be "for progress's sake," Charles Baudelaire spoke sardonically about such utilitarian views. Baudelaire conceded that this attitude was a route to success and popularity yet contradicted the belief in progress in his own work. In his poem "Élévation" (1857), he places the pictorial at the centre of the world. His chosen letters, coming together to form verses, evoke colours and geometric figures that weave themselves into forms and patterns, like those we see in images. Meanwhile, the artist, in dealing with form, strives to ensure that thoughts and images alike are able to take effect, and in alignment with one another: in language, figures of thought fuse with the ideograms of the so-called style imagé.
But this requires a form that attaches itself to the thought, like an accommodating meaning. The image cannot remain a mere illustration but must capture and continue the thoughts of the viewer, as an entity in its own right. Nowhere is this principle clearer than in the work of Albrecht Dürer. The Reformation and the rise of humanism fostered specific encounters between word and image in the German graphic tradition that remain effective to this day. Scheibitz simultaneously explores and reveals the depth of this historical reference in paintings such as Philosoph (2024) and Historische Szene (2026). They act as keepers of time, who position forms, rhythms, motifs and perspectives against a refiguration of the centre. At stake is nothing less than a confrontation between the idolisation of the present and historical consciousness, and a questioning of the visual memories we are handed. Scheibitz draws on exactly this dynamic when he archives historical source material and translates it into his unmistakable visual language.
The idea that sculpture is as important as painting to the development of modernism, and that it reveals a hidden but recurring relationship between forms, has sparked countless debates. For Scheibitz, this leads to the recognition that there is no ideal form free of influence. In such works as Skulptur (2026) and Doppelporträt / Säule (2026), form carries its ideality within it; were that not so, there would be no such thing as style in art. Our affinity for certain eras and forms exposes something deeper than the simple ability to recognise them. What is essential in art remains anonymous.
Driven by the flood of images we face every day, the development of art increasingly leads us back to the same meaning again and again. There is something wearying in this uniformity. Over time, forms descend into allegory, and in our own time into simple cliché. Like all symbols, the figures in Scheibitz's work speak to us in two ways. They first seem familiar when we encounter them in paintings like Großes Kind (2026). And, ultimately, we recognise ourselves in his forms: the deeper we immerse ourselves in his world of imagery, the clearer it becomes that we are the real figures under influence—caught up in the preconceptions of the present moment, which we can only break free of through the act of comparative seeing.
Thomas Scheibitz (*1968, Radeberg, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. Selected solo exhibitions include: Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2025), Sprüth Magers London (2021), Museum Berggruen, Nationalgalerie - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (2019), KINDL - Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin (2018), Kunstmuseum Bonn (2018), Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle (2013), Sprüth Magers, Berlin (2014), Museum für Moderne Kunst MMK, Frankfurt (2012), Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia (2011), Museo de Arte de São Paulo (2010), Camden Arts Centre, London (2008), MUDAM, Luxembourg (2008), Sprüth Magers, Berlin (2008), IMMA, Dublin (2007), Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva (2004), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2001) and Kunstmuseum Winterthur (2001). Thomas Scheibitz represented Germany at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005. Since 2003, he has also been active as a curator and has held a professorship in painting and sculpture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf since 2018.
