GIRBENT 02. May 2025 - 16. July 2025

"Museum walls" is a series of paintings that forms part of Girbent’s ongoing exploration of a theme that has defined his artistic career: the relationship between the original and the copy.
With this series, the artist proposes a 1:1 scale recreation of selected museum wall fragments from around the world. Girbent recreates the artworks that hang on these venerable walls, while at the same time reconstructing the experience of contemplating those very works.
 The paintings from the Museum Walls series presented in this exhibition at the Michael Fuchs Gallery in Berlin specifically reference the great 2023 Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The artist’s game is to “relocate” six fragments of this historic artistic event to the heart of Berlin. Girbent strips these paintings—classical in appearance but radically contemporary in essence—of all distractions. He paints only three elements: painting, frame, and wall. These elements are carefully assembled using precise light and shadow effects, creating a powerful optical illusion, a visual sensation reminiscent of trompe-l’œil. However, this illusionistic effect—while undoubtedly attention-grabbing—is not the most interesting aspect of these works. As we have stated, the artist re-creates a series of walls. These paintings do not refer to any specific captured moment: they appear to be a moment frozen in time, but they are not. In reality—and here we move beyond appearances once again—they are constructions, not impressions.
 
Arturo Castro