Eberhard Havekost (1967–2019)

We are saddened to learn of the passing of German artist Eberhard Havekost (1967–2019). His abstract paintings were based on digitally manipulated photographs, highlighting his view that painting is a process as opposed to an impulsive exercise. Zabludowicz Collection acquired their first work by Havekost in 2003; the large scale painting Fassade (2002) focuses on a close up of a modernist building basking in the sunlight.

“Painting engenders rhythm through its self-referentiality. It introduces an abstraction, namely a reduction in favor of the total picture. In painting, everything must be defined. An undefined space in photography must be defined in painting. Thus, an undefined space in painting must be redefined. Information is a transformation of reality or a structuring of reality. Every picture has a system contact. You can always infer from a single picture to a system. I don’t think that there are any individual images.” - Eberhard Havekost