Joachim Lehrer - The secret life of things
21.04. - 02.06.2024
The poetry of loneliness and the beauty of things visualized in Lehrer's pictorial worlds
Fragments of memories come together in Lehrer’s pictures to form places that represent a microcosm at rest. A gas station without a gas station attendant, a truck without a road, an airplane without passengers. Lonely, deserted and yet alive, these places are surrounded by nature, the weather and the sky.
It is our memories that we can associate with each of these motifs and that bring these things to life.
The secret life of things lies precisely in the fact that there are no people there, because we, the people, are in the here and now. We are not there. But we know what we see there. We see the people who once lived there, who created these places and owned the things. The human traits remain in these pictorial worlds. The worlds that invite us to dream seem somehow familiar and at the same time strange.

Lehrer was born in Reutlingen in 1954. After graduating from high school in 1974, he initially worked as a truck driver. During this time, he developed a great fascination for trucks. It is not easy to maneuver such a colossus carefully and safely. Lehrer quickly realized that he had to get involved with the vehicle in order to be able to handle it. He quickly
developed a feeling of attachment to the truck. Two years later, he began studying German and art history. He quickly discovered baroque landscape painting for himself and began to explore the technique of resin oil glazing. From 1976, he painted continuously until he devoted himself entirely to painting in 1983 and is still active as an artist today. Numerous exhibitions at home and abroad brought him to GALERIE MESSMER for the first time in 2019.