Event date: 21 January 2026
Review by Danusia Wurm
A Retreat for the Good Shepherd, The Collection, Lincoln Cathedral, 2016, Lothar Götz
Picture the scene. For an artist defined by his exuberant use of colour, playfully, Luthar Götz started his talk with an image of an early black and white installation: two black, elongated triangles precisely placed on a white gallery wall. For the highly receptive ncas audience, it was a witty introduction to Götz’ practice in colour, space and light.
Walking the line
Born in Germany in the 1960s, as a child, Götz was totally obsessed with architecture which has since fuelled his imagination. He was first drawn to the abstraction of Modernism and the Bauhaus, in particular multi-disciplinary artist and visionary Oskar Schlemmer, during his visual communications and graphic design studies in Aachen in the 1980s.
Götz found Schlemmer’s philosophy relating to life and movement the perfect antidote to the boring figurative “traditional” art taught in Germany at that time. As a self-confessed music, dance and clubbing fanatic (think David Bowie and techno), Schlemmer’ s fantastical and groundbreaking Triadic Ballet totally resonated with Götz. Art could be fun and colourful. It could also be political. Götz’ championing of the Bauhaus was a deliberate response to Germany’s Nazi history when abstract, modern art was deemed “degenerate art” and banned.
Götz went on to study aesthetics at Wuppertal and finally fine art at the Royal Academy, London. It was at this time that he decided to combine his various disciplines within his site-specific wall painting practice.
There is a transition between abstraction and the real space; it’s this play that interests me
Götz’ installations are numerous and varied spanning many different architectural styles, eras and locations. They include entire building exteriors (Towner Theatre, Eastbourne), niches (the space between buildings), galleries (Pallant House Gallery, Leeds Gallery), foyers, reading rooms, offices, or the humble staircase - a personal favourite of Götz creating their own visual geometry as people journey up and down them.
Götz’ site-specific works and wall paintings aren’t a product of the pictorial wall-painting tradition. Instead, reflecting his passion for architecture and abstraction, his wall paintings literally dance and play with the space.
Götz likens it to “an intervention”. He says “The moment it’s painted onto a wall, it becomes part of the space - part of reality, never completely abstract. There is a transition between abstraction and the real space; it’s this play that interests me”.
His gallery installations are temporary often lasting for only a few weeks before being painted over. Counterintuitively, Götz positively relishes the “impermanence” of his gallery work which, for him, becomes a kind of “stage set” animated by people. It also “frees him up” giving him the opportunity to execute a bolder treatment than a permanent or “owned” work might allow.
The space tells me what to do
Götz approaches each project in the same way, always insisting on a residency or time alone to better understand the space, its surroundings, light and spirit. For him, it’s a two-way conversation. It ends when “the space tells me what to do”.
Götz also deliberately seeks to incorporate the site-specific imperfections, be they beams, stains, electric cables, windows or mismatched doors, into the final work as they are integral to the space. Lines of sight to and from each mural, through other buildings and outdoor spaces are an equally important feature of each work.
To help determine the final treatment Götz sketches first, developing a network of lines dividing architectural areas into functional, aesthetic or proportional sections. He then transfers the design onto the wall using chalk and line – an ancient technique applied for modern means.
For me, colours stand for freedom
Götz uses vibrant colour to further define the architectural qualities and the spirit of a space. He is interested in the way aspects of decoration and colour can have an impact upon us explaining how the vivid bold colours and graphics of the1972 Munich Olympics had a profound influence on him as a boy. His colour decisions are made on site. They are instinctive, purely abstract decisions responding to the light, shadows, surroundings and atmosphere. Their polychromatic vibrancy is barely contained by the careful geometric abstraction of their surrounding lines. “For me, colours stand for freedom,” he says. “They are what they are without any excuse.”
Dance Diagonal, Towner Gallery, Eastbourne, 2019, Lothar Götz
You begin with a dot
Of equal importance to his site-specific wall paintings and room-sized spatial installations which directly respond to the space, Götz explained how his beautifully contrived smaller paintings and crayon drawings might respond to single lines from writings, films, conversations or historical artworks often connected with the ideas and visions of Modernism. There’s a clear coherence and dialogue across his body of work, through its continual referencing and engagement with architecture and space and its characteristic use of geometric forms and fields of intense colour.
Thoughtful, engaging, candid and expressive, Götz is a born communicator whose polychromatic practice does more than lift the spirit. It brings people together and starts the conversation.
ncas would like to thank Lothar for his brilliant talk and artist Carl Rowe for his excellent introduction and compering the post talk conversation.
ncas would also like to thank the Norwich School for kindly hosting of the event at their Blake Studio.
Further information
German artist Lother Götz (b. 1963 in Gunzburg, Germany) completed an MA at the Royal College of Art in 1998, after studying in Germany at Aachen, Düsseldorf and Wuppertal. He has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad, with solo shows at galleries such as Gasworks (London), the Chisenhale (London), Mappin Art Gallery (Sheffield), Museum Goch (Germany), David Risley Gallery (Copenhagen) and the Petra Rinck Gallery (Dusseldorf), and has been included in group exhibitions in Amsterdam, Dublin, Hamburg, Hanover, Salamanca, Wilhelmshaven and Wuppertal. He also participated in the Prague Triennale.
In Spring 2010 Götz contributed a major work to an international showcase exhibition on wall-painting at the Miró Foundation in Barcelona. His other public commissions include Platform for Art at Piccadilly Circus underground station in 2007, a collaboration with Caruso St John Architects at the Arts Council England Offices in 2008, a commission at Haymarket Metro Station, Newcastle in 2009, and site-specific wall painting projects such as Xanadu at Leeds Art Gallery in 2017, Composition for a Staircase at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester in 2016, and Dance Diagonal at Towner Gallery in Eastbourne in 2019. Götz has also participated in art residencies in New York, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and the Abbey Fellowship at the British School at Rome in 2010.
The artist currently lives and works in both London and Berlin and is Associate Professor of Fine Art at the University of Sunderland.