Bert Gerresheim - Everything vexed.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday, the Clemens Sels Museum Neuss dedicated an exhibition to the internationally renowned artist Bert Gerresheim, which offered a representative overview of both his extensive pictorial and graphic oeuvre.

At the center of his artistic work is the method of conundrum. Accordingly, for the artist, the external image is only the beginning of the search for a form of expression for the manifold layers of metaphysical being. The entire spectrum of Bert Gerresheim's impressive pictorial inventions found its way into the exhibition. In addition to the sculptural conundrum portraits, conundrum torsos and conundrum grotesques, the large-scale sculptures in public space were also included by means of large-format projections and supplemented by original bozzetti. Among them are impressive and widely known works such as the "Heinrich Heine Question Mark" in Düsseldorf and the monumental bronze relief above the main portal of the Marian Basilica in Kevelaer with the theme of the Apocalypse. Two particularly extensive cycles introduced us to the complex pictorial world of the artist's virtuoso drawings. The "Oostender Stundenbuch", which is also a homage to the great Belgian symbolist James Ensor, was shown in excerpts. The opulent series of pictures "Extramundi - An Otherworldly Journey" consisting of 99 conundrum pictures was shown in its entirety for the first time.