Michael Krebber

Now 64, Krebber is part of a postwar generation of German painters who questioned the efficacy of their medium in the wake of Conceptual Art. Krebber tackled the issue in canvases that were often little more than isolated gestures stranded against expansive white backgrounds. In some cases, these marks were readable as images, but more often than not, they were abstract, the expressions of an economy of hand which Krebber used to tilt at our preconceptions of what a painting is suppose to be—and what, if anything, it represents. In his latest work, Krebber restricts himself, for the most part, to a creamy mustard-y palette, as daubs, strokes and passages made with a roller alternately coalesce and deliquesce into things like a baguette, a streetscape and even an American flag. Where Krebber is going with all of this is, as usual, hard to say, though the phrase “Herbes de Provence” (herbs of Provence), which prefaces many of the painting titles, suggests memories of an idyllic sojourn in the South of France.