Reinhard Pods

Reinhard Pods, a Berlin-based artist, creates gestural abstract paintings characterized by layers of intense colors, scribbled lines blurred into streaks, enigmatic graffiti-like writings, and distorted figures in large formats set against dense spaces.

Biography of Reinhard Pods

Reinhard Pods, born in 1951 in Berlin, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin from 1971 to 1977. Following his studies, he received a DAAD scholarship that allowed him to spend 12 months in New York between 1977 and 1978. During his time in the U.S., Pods immersed himself in the vibrant art scene of the gritty city, living in a loft on Elizabeth Street in Little Italy, creating paintings, visiting galleries, and frequenting iconic venues like CBGB's and Max's Kansas City.

Upon returning to Germany in 1978, Pods settled on the border of Neukölln and Kreuzberg, areas known for their cultural dynamism. He co-founded alternate art spaces like Galerie am Moritzplatz and gallery 1/61 with a group of like-minded artist friends.

Pods has received several prestigious scholarships and awards throughout his career, including the Villa Romana Prize (1980), the Villa Massimo Prize (1988), the Will Grohmann Prize (1994), and the Fred Thieler Prize of the Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (1996). Although he withdrew from the public eye in the mid-1990s, he made a notable return with acclaimed exhibitions at Galerie Michael Haas in Berlin and Zürich in 2012 and 2018.

Reinhard Pods' Art Style

Reinhard Pods' early work, such as "Jetzt" (Now), 1979, features aggressive and rapid painting techniques using acrylics and a house painter’s brush. This piece, a rhombus-shaped canvas in tones of gray, white, and pink, incorporates elements like a cigarette butt and studio detritus, with the word "Jetzt" assertively appearing amidst abstract strokes and painterly drips.

Pods' more recent paintings, including "Licht Jain" (1991) and "Untitled (Willkürlich)" (2001), demonstrate a refined aesthetic language characterized by assuredness and confidence.

Over the last decade, he has continued to evolve his style, incorporating more figurative references and playful word elements. His technique often involves squeezing paint directly from the tube onto canvases, resulting in works with astonishing freshness and vitality, exemplified by his "Untitled" paintings of 2022.