(Preview of Catalogue)

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Alex Diamond exhibited twice in our Gallery with large monothematic shows, in 2004 with „Alex Diamond’s Strange Sofa“ and in 2005 with „Gold, Kinder!“ His next large solo show, „Love me with a gun to my head“, will open end of November 2007, and features installations, paintings, collages, drawings and performance.

Alex Diamond is an artist who apparently lives solely through the art he creates - and vice versa. He plays mind tricks with ...
visual aids, pleasing at one moment, disturbing in the next. Independent from styles and techniques, he mirrors life and our constant fight for possession, superiority, survival and love in an almost nonchalant way.

("Up In The Clouds/Alone WithYou" (Detail). 2007, acrylic on wood, 60 x 80 x 3 cm)

About Alex Diamond

by Dorian Winster, 2007

Alex Diamond has been around for a while, staging incredible shows that also always celebrate the incarnation of the artist in various characters, shapes or even gender. Diamond appears at these shows in different roles, and underlining this artistic approach he does not reveal his background or vita, which would be an invention anyway.

The difficulties to describe who or what Alex Diamond is already start with the missing vita: Unseizable as a person and difficult to categorize as an artist, Alex Diamond is more phantasy than reality. His main issue always centers around his work and its presentation, but never around the personality of an individual. Alex Diamond appears always as a new and different creation of a role or character with every one of his mostly monothematic and staged shows. Not limited by a CV, a formative education or even a dedicated technique or style, Alex Diamond constantly develops a new specific presence for the „Artist behind the work“.

As much as this is unusal, it offers huge freedom other artists do not have. Diamond (or what Diamond choses to be) can tell a completely new and different story using different means or perspectives every time he opens up his studio to release new work. He is a storyteller, a seducer, a catalyst. It is not about the person or the importance of personality todays artists often get, it is about the changeabilty and flexibilty of the icarnation of the artist as part of his current project.
This play with phantasies, with different roles and themes within one artist, can be seen as related to musicians or, even better, with superheroes (or even porn actors). With the diference that - in contrast to e.g. Bono Vox/Paul Hewson or Spider-Man/Peter Parker, behind whom exists always a real person with a vita and name - Alex Diamond really has no other identity.

Despite all this, Alex Diamond is an artist in the traditional way, who is gaining more and more attention on the art market. This is due to the fact that the interchangeablilty of his character doesn’t contradict the curational aspects of developing a sustainable body of work. It’s rather the opposite: as an artist Diamond works extremely focused on the development of a lasting and unique work, which maybe can only be defined by the name: Alex Diamond is Alex Diamond is .... His distinctive approach to making his art is defined by creating quality, value and relevance within his complete work as an artist.

However, the changes between characters and styles are not hard (or harsh) turns, but more a smooth development process, so that it becomes more and more possible over the years to identify a clear originator behind everything Alex Diamond produces. No uncontrollable jumps between styles, rather an extension or narrative translation of an artistic vision.