Chris Martin
22 Oct 2011 - 15 Jan 2012
© Chris Martin
Untitled, 1984-1999
Öl und Sprühfarbe auf Holzfaserplatte
Courtesy of Chris Martin, KOW BERLIN, and Mitchel-Innes & Nash, New York
Untitled, 1984-1999
Öl und Sprühfarbe auf Holzfaserplatte
Courtesy of Chris Martin, KOW BERLIN, and Mitchel-Innes & Nash, New York
CHRIS MARTIN
Staring Into The Sun
22 October, 2011 – 15 January, 2012
The Kunsthalle is currently preparing the first institutional solo exhibition outside the United States by Chris Martin (b. 1954 in Washington D.C.), who is as yet relatively unknown in Germany.
Since the mid-nineties, Martin’s work has frequently referenced to artist colleagues from the fields of painting and music – a homage not only pop stars, but also those who existed and exist outside the mainstream; in some cases, viz. Michael Jackson, James Brown or the investigator of the Red Ribbon project, Frank Moore, prompted by their deaths. Dedications of this
sort are indicative of the societal foundation of Martin’s large-format compositions, as well as being gestures of devotion and solidarity. At the same time, they break away from those purity requirements of monochrome or color field painting. The names are rudely placed into the image’s overall space, adjascent to glued coins, vinyl LPs, banana skins, and newspaper articles. For more than thirty years now and despite the crude, thoroughly secular appearance of the images’ surfaces, Martin’s work has been tapping into various different traditions of spiritual abstraction, for which New York, where Martin has been living since 1975, has been the proverbial melting pot.
The exhibition, curated by Elodie Evers and Gregor Jansen, will focus in particular upon the early and middle period of Martin’s oeuvre. The “Black Paintings”, for example, which create the illusion of three-dimensional space with a few lines, belong to the older works. Martin’s engagement with painters, such as Malevich und Mondrian, is clearly visible here. In parallel to these large-format paintings Martin also worked on a number of small, colourful canvases. In these paintings, Martin reverts to Christian mysticism and anthroposophist symbolism, as well as to the “spiritual landscapes” of North American Romanticism, quite unknown in Europe. In particular, the painting "Staring into the Sun",
Staring Into The Sun
22 October, 2011 – 15 January, 2012
The Kunsthalle is currently preparing the first institutional solo exhibition outside the United States by Chris Martin (b. 1954 in Washington D.C.), who is as yet relatively unknown in Germany.
Since the mid-nineties, Martin’s work has frequently referenced to artist colleagues from the fields of painting and music – a homage not only pop stars, but also those who existed and exist outside the mainstream; in some cases, viz. Michael Jackson, James Brown or the investigator of the Red Ribbon project, Frank Moore, prompted by their deaths. Dedications of this
sort are indicative of the societal foundation of Martin’s large-format compositions, as well as being gestures of devotion and solidarity. At the same time, they break away from those purity requirements of monochrome or color field painting. The names are rudely placed into the image’s overall space, adjascent to glued coins, vinyl LPs, banana skins, and newspaper articles. For more than thirty years now and despite the crude, thoroughly secular appearance of the images’ surfaces, Martin’s work has been tapping into various different traditions of spiritual abstraction, for which New York, where Martin has been living since 1975, has been the proverbial melting pot.
The exhibition, curated by Elodie Evers and Gregor Jansen, will focus in particular upon the early and middle period of Martin’s oeuvre. The “Black Paintings”, for example, which create the illusion of three-dimensional space with a few lines, belong to the older works. Martin’s engagement with painters, such as Malevich und Mondrian, is clearly visible here. In parallel to these large-format paintings Martin also worked on a number of small, colourful canvases. In these paintings, Martin reverts to Christian mysticism and anthroposophist symbolism, as well as to the “spiritual landscapes” of North American Romanticism, quite unknown in Europe. In particular, the painting "Staring into the Sun",