For the second participation at Art Cologne, Elektrohalle Rhomberg is thrilled to present new paintings from various bodies of work by Viennese artist Max Freund. Freund approaches painting as an open field for exploring the human condition. His images emerge from the observation of culture—drawing on art history and pop culture, subcultural movements, music, books, as well as personal archives and everyday situations. Within them resonate themes of fragility, dependency, and alienation, but equally of community and shared experience. This ambivalence—between proximity and distance, familiarity and strangeness—shapes Freund’s visual worlds.