In Farbe bekennen, Alexander Dik presents new portraits from his ongoing series “Große Esser” (The Great Eaters). Drawing inspiration from iconic works such as da Vinci’s Last Supper, Van Gogh’s Potato Eaters, Baselitz’s Orange Eater, Cattelan’s Banana, and Malevich’s Black Square, Dik takes a clear stance: against the polished, against the beautified — in favor of the grotesque and the uncomfortable.
His portraits are raw and relentless — faces that are simultaneously grimaces and mirrors. They scream, they swallow, they fall silent. In them, Dik wrestles with questions of identity, consumption, and representation. The figures are exaggerated, exposed, and pushed to the edge of distortion — and yet profoundly human. His painting is honest, wild, and uncompromising, much like the artist himself.
A bronze sculpture in the space expands these portraits into a tangible, physical dimension. Fragmented and archaic, it stands as a quiet counterpoint to the expressive canvases — a vulnerable body that occupies the room and takes a position without uttering a word.
Dik’s portraits do not tell stories; they confront, provoke, and reveal.
To “show your true colors” means this: the tragedy is not in losing, but in refusing to face oneself in the presence of possibility.
