There is a restrained sophistication about Carl Kleiner’s work that immediately draws you in to its elegance before puzzling you with its surrealism, and finally repelling you with its slightly sinister subject matter. First appearances, in the art of Carl Kleiner’s case, are clearly not everything. Look closer and you might get scared.
There is a menacing element of Francis Bacon in his work, as well as an eerie inversion of Cezanne’s still lives. Whereas the French master’s still lives were illuminating in their absence of a human presence, colorful and exotic, Kleiner’s are more unsettling. As you glance at a bunch of everyday objects suspended to the floor, you begin to wonder what is the meaning behind it all. You begin to plead for some sort of sign of life. Let’s take a closer look….
