Hugo Wilson has chosen “The Raft” as title for his upcoming Berlin exhibition. Of course, this immediately evokes associations with the most famous raft in art history, Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa – and inevitably with the theme of “salvation.” So how does this tie in with this exhibition, the first in which his abstract and his figurative works are shown side by side?

Firstly, we need to understand the two poles between which Wilson’s work oscillates. On the one hand, there are the figurative, highly tangible compositions in which animals play a decisive role. They are metaphors of complex processes and moments – not in the animal kingdom, but in our highly technological human societies. The double monkey, for example, that we see in ReTro is the result of recent cloning experiments. The symbol in the background even refers to the corresponding laboratory. Wilson’s horses (State I and II) can also be read symbolically. They are versions of the famous painting Whistlejacket (1762) by Georges Stubbs, which is now one of the icons in the collection of the National Gallery in London. It shows a proud, life-size racehorse set against a flat, monochrome background. It was a bold, highly unconventional picture in an era in which only high-ranking personalities were portrayed in such a manner. Stubbs’ masterpiece, which excludes any reference to a rider, became an emblem of British self-assurance and vigor – in other words, an image that definitely signified state power. Hugo Wilson has picked up on this, turning the animal that in Stubbs’ painting looks at us as it climbs so that it now turns its backside towards us, kicking at the viewer with its hind legs. The animal couldn’t care less about our metaphorical presumptions and its national significance. His meticulously rendered, masterful portraits show that Wilson has a contemporary approach: he is interested in what certain motifs stand for – and indeed why. How do certain images become symbols, a foothold, a saving raft in a sea of indeterminacy and ambiguity? And what happens when these symbols lose their clarity and certainty? How could this even happen?