German Easels

EBERHARD HAVEKOST, A STAR OF BERLIN'S ART SCENE

The most recent crop of young German artists has galleries and collectors in an astonished buying frenzy. But Eberhard Havekost, who was born in Dresden and now lives in Berlin, was among the very first to arrive on these shores. "Marvel," which opens on December 9, will be the 37-year-old's fourth solo show at the Anton Kern Gallery, in New York City. Havekost may be the only contemporary artist who, before attending art school, served an apprenticeship as a stonemason. And, though he ultimately became a painter, his canvases do have a quality of elaborate construction. Cars, landscapes, movie stars, even a scaffold—all in tones that remind one of old Kodacolor prints—seem anything but commonplace. He scans an image from a photograph or magazine and then, using Photoshop software, stretches, crops, or compresses it. The final work is done freehand, in oil paint. Still, it's not just Havekost's sharp, stylish, deadpan realism that people find at once striking and unsettling; it's also the odd perspective he brings to the ordinary. A man bent over an ugly mustard-colored sink is captured from above, as if by a surveillance camera; rows of terraces on an otherwise nondescript building lean away from the viewer like a propped ladder. Whatever this magician pulls out of his sleeve, it always leaves viewers marveling.

DANIEL KUNITZ