5 + 7 + 5 = 17
OR A HAIKU

Sunday, 30 June, 2024
5 PM, Berlin with

Patrick Gabler

Five plus seven plus five results in either seventeen or a haiku. It seems like a simple calculation, but opens a vast space – an entire world in a poetic nutshell. Strict rules do not hinder artistic play; rather, they set it in motion. This is also true for haiku, which consists of just three lines with first five, then seven, and again five syllables. A law of extreme brevity frames a linguistic space in which something very rare can happen – namely, that silence expresses itself.

Johann H. Claussen
Is it indifferent whether one uses a brush and ink to draw, or a pen to write a word?

What freedom do the rules of writing Haikus allow?
These questions and more, we want to investigate.  It seems only logical to me that Patrick writes haikus and accompanies them with visual components. After all, he manages to manifest quite prominent brushstrokes in pitch-black Indian ink, closely set together, into light, almost transient forms reminiscent of clouds or celestial bodies on large sheets of paper. This act is likewise based on an absolute dedication to the moment, the perception of a fleeting instant that ultimately initiates the movement leading the hand to the paper.

CULINARY HAIKUS ?

Exactly ! My rules:
° seasonal produce
° 5 tastes = salty, umami, bitter, sour and sweet
° 17 edible plant genus/family
° 5 basic foods

CURIOUS?

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ABOUT PATRICK GABLER
Patrick Gabler was born in Munich in 1967 and lives and works in Hamburg since 1989.  He studied at Hamburg University of Applied Science.  His large-scale drawings of the Circle and Cosmos Cycle are on view as a continuing body of works on paper since 2004. 

Marks of imaginative and romantic landscapes rotate in these large Indian ink drawings and present a contemplative, but also a complex and moving images. Inspired by the landscape painting and drawings of the romantic era, he forms circles, comets, moons and pine trees out of the many little, swaying brushstrokes.  These single brushstrokes can be brought to paper only once, with uttermost gentle implementation, a precise alignment of elements in his vision, and by complete surrender to the moment.

In addition to Gabler's drawings having been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions in and outside of Germany, his works have been acquired for the public collections of the Museum for Prints and drawings, Berlin; the Achenbach Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, San Francisco; the Kunsthalle Hamburg; the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen; and the Bradbury Art Museum, State University of Arkansas.