Offset Print
30 x 40 cm
Editions: 5,000,000,000, copies 1-100 for the Kölnischer Kunstverein
signed, dated, numbered
For the very few five billion is the title of Norbert Arns’ annual edition – parodying the exclusivity of the “very few five”. The work consists of a sheet of paper folded in the middle, on which a hexagon can be seen. The lines of the hexagon become minimally condensed towards the center. If you hold the leaf at a right angle in front of your eyes or hang the leaf at eye level in the corner of a room and look at it intensively, the hexagon turns into a rectangle and jumps out of the corner.
Norbert Arns’ paintings are characterized by geometric structures and op-art effects. In a series of recent works, he stretched an industrially produced mesh fabric twice, but at different distances, in front of a colored canvas, creating a captivating, shimmering effect in the eye of the viewer. In an unusual way, his painterly interest likes to combine it with daily political situation comedy. Together with the architect Verena Kluth, he collected a fragment from the ruins of the former Josef-Haubrich-Halle in 2003. They inserted the detail from the façade with the concise relief structure between the archaeological exhibits in the outdoor area of the Roman-Germanic Museum. Another silkscreen edition looks like an oversized book title on which it says: “Hör auf, mich mit meinem Handke zu schlagen”. Norbert Arns, born in 1968, is one of the initiators of the kjubh e.V., the Loch e.V. and the European Kunsthalle.
