Brice Marden
12 Jun - 07 Oct 2007
© 2006 Brice Marden
Cold Mountain 6 (Bridge), 1989-91
Oil on linen,
274,3 x 365,8cm
San Francisco Museum of Art. Purchased through a gift of Phyllis Wattis
Cold Mountain 6 (Bridge), 1989-91
Oil on linen,
274,3 x 365,8cm
San Francisco Museum of Art. Purchased through a gift of Phyllis Wattis
BRICE MARDEN
12 June 07 - 07 October 2007
The Retrospective on Brice Marden provides the first large-scale overview of the creations of one of the most important contemporary abstract artists. After the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Hamburger Bahnhof will be the only site of exhibition for this very comprehensive body of work in Europe. With a total of 54 works, 43 paintings and 11 drawings, the exhibition shows a broad cross section of Marden's works from the early 1960s up to the present.
Brice Marden was born in Bronxville, near New York City, in 1938. He studied at the Boston University School of Fine and Applied Arts and graduated as a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University School of Art and Architecture. Already during his studies, Marden stopped working on figurative art and the representation of the concrete. Rather, inspired by artists such as Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, he begins to exclusively paint abstract paintings, either monochrome or composed of several uni-coloured spaces. He uses a very idiosyncratic subdued palette, and sometimes, traces of his palette-knife would still show on the surface.
While the artists uses his resources rather sparingly, he nonetheless creates a very elaborate surface: In 1966, Marden completes the first of his famous wax paintings, Wax I, for which he mixes oil paints with turpentine and hot bee's wax to leave a mat finish and create a more atmospheric character.
Despite the apparent strictness of these early compositions, Marden has emphasised time and again that his art is highly subjective and emotional and differs significantly from the attitude of those contemporary tendencies found in Minimalism, which strove for greatest possible objectivity and clarity of the actual work. Alongside Paul Cézanne and Jackson Pollock he cites Alberto Giacometti and Henri Matisse as his greatest sources of inspiration.
At the beginning of the 1970s, the artist went on his first journey to the Greek island of Hydra where he would buy a house and return many times over the years to come. These stays on the island inspired a range of works reflecting both Marden's impressions of light and landscape, but also his interest in Greek architecture and mythology. The Grove Group series is an important example from this period, where the artist draws inspiration from the sight of Greek olive groves (painting 2, Grove Group II, 1972-73). In Moon III, 1977, a work consisting of three large boards, Marden interprets the different phases of the moon. Overall, it appears that the colours had become lighter and the format larger as compared to his paintings from the 1960s.
As much as the first trip to Greece led to an intensive confrontation with Greek culture, a journey to Asia in the year 1983 triggered a more long-term study of Far Eastern traditions. This interest culminated in an entirely new style of painting, as Marden turned his attention to gestural abstraction. Lines overlap and remind of organic forms, the shapes and colours become livelier and brighter. In this phase between 1988 and 1991, he created the famous Cold Mountain series, where elements of the East Asian art of writing can be retraced as clearly as the influence of Jackson Pollock. With this set of works, Marden reiterates once more his position as one of the most important abstract painters of his generation (image 3 Cold mountain 6 (Bridge), 1989-91).
Marden was deeply impressed by his encounters with Greek and Asian cultures and combined elements of both in the motif of the dancing muses, a motif known from Henri Matisse's famous painting Dance II, 1909-1910. On the monumental painting The Muses, 1991-93, vibrating lines overlap, resembling calligraphic characters as much as organic forms: the intertwined movements render visible and actual the sensual experience of Zeus' daughters dancing.
Two of the most spectacular works of recent times are presented to the public for the first time: The Propitious Garden of Plane Image, Second Version and The Propitious Garden of Plane Image, Third Version are both more than seven metres long and spread across more than six boards, covering the spectrum of six colours - red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. These works are inspired by Greek compositions and Chinese scrolls and span the period from the 1970s up to paintings of the present.
12 June 07 - 07 October 2007
The Retrospective on Brice Marden provides the first large-scale overview of the creations of one of the most important contemporary abstract artists. After the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Hamburger Bahnhof will be the only site of exhibition for this very comprehensive body of work in Europe. With a total of 54 works, 43 paintings and 11 drawings, the exhibition shows a broad cross section of Marden's works from the early 1960s up to the present.
Brice Marden was born in Bronxville, near New York City, in 1938. He studied at the Boston University School of Fine and Applied Arts and graduated as a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University School of Art and Architecture. Already during his studies, Marden stopped working on figurative art and the representation of the concrete. Rather, inspired by artists such as Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, he begins to exclusively paint abstract paintings, either monochrome or composed of several uni-coloured spaces. He uses a very idiosyncratic subdued palette, and sometimes, traces of his palette-knife would still show on the surface.
While the artists uses his resources rather sparingly, he nonetheless creates a very elaborate surface: In 1966, Marden completes the first of his famous wax paintings, Wax I, for which he mixes oil paints with turpentine and hot bee's wax to leave a mat finish and create a more atmospheric character.
Despite the apparent strictness of these early compositions, Marden has emphasised time and again that his art is highly subjective and emotional and differs significantly from the attitude of those contemporary tendencies found in Minimalism, which strove for greatest possible objectivity and clarity of the actual work. Alongside Paul Cézanne and Jackson Pollock he cites Alberto Giacometti and Henri Matisse as his greatest sources of inspiration.
At the beginning of the 1970s, the artist went on his first journey to the Greek island of Hydra where he would buy a house and return many times over the years to come. These stays on the island inspired a range of works reflecting both Marden's impressions of light and landscape, but also his interest in Greek architecture and mythology. The Grove Group series is an important example from this period, where the artist draws inspiration from the sight of Greek olive groves (painting 2, Grove Group II, 1972-73). In Moon III, 1977, a work consisting of three large boards, Marden interprets the different phases of the moon. Overall, it appears that the colours had become lighter and the format larger as compared to his paintings from the 1960s.
As much as the first trip to Greece led to an intensive confrontation with Greek culture, a journey to Asia in the year 1983 triggered a more long-term study of Far Eastern traditions. This interest culminated in an entirely new style of painting, as Marden turned his attention to gestural abstraction. Lines overlap and remind of organic forms, the shapes and colours become livelier and brighter. In this phase between 1988 and 1991, he created the famous Cold Mountain series, where elements of the East Asian art of writing can be retraced as clearly as the influence of Jackson Pollock. With this set of works, Marden reiterates once more his position as one of the most important abstract painters of his generation (image 3 Cold mountain 6 (Bridge), 1989-91).
Marden was deeply impressed by his encounters with Greek and Asian cultures and combined elements of both in the motif of the dancing muses, a motif known from Henri Matisse's famous painting Dance II, 1909-1910. On the monumental painting The Muses, 1991-93, vibrating lines overlap, resembling calligraphic characters as much as organic forms: the intertwined movements render visible and actual the sensual experience of Zeus' daughters dancing.
Two of the most spectacular works of recent times are presented to the public for the first time: The Propitious Garden of Plane Image, Second Version and The Propitious Garden of Plane Image, Third Version are both more than seven metres long and spread across more than six boards, covering the spectrum of six colours - red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. These works are inspired by Greek compositions and Chinese scrolls and span the period from the 1970s up to paintings of the present.