An Energetically Charged Tangle of Lines
Deutsche
Bank is Sponsoring the Large Brice Marden Retrospective at the Hamburger
Bahnhof
Brice
Marden, Dragons, 2000-2004
Private
Collection
©2006 Brice
Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The
largest Brice Marden Retrospective to date was a smashing success at the Museum
of Modern Art in New York and the MOMA
in San Francisco. On May 12, the show goes to Berlin, with support from Deutsche
Bank , to the Hamburger
Bahnhof, the first European venue presenting the entire spectrum of
Marden's work.
Brice
Marden, The Seasons, 1974-75
©2006
Brice Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The
comprehensive retrospective includes more than 50 large-format paintings
and many drawings from Marden's
40-year creative period. It begins chronologically with his subdued
monochrome panels which were executed between the 1960s and the 1980s.
They established him on the New York scene. He started making
monochromatic paintings in the 1960s, in an era in which this was no
longer revolutionary. By means of the proportions of his rectangular
picture fields and parallel and diagonal lines, as well as the change
between light and dark, he translates human emotionality into an abstract
picture. Although the titles of his works often refer to phenomena from
nature or landscapes – for example, the The Seasons created
between 1974 and 1975 or his famous painting Nebraska (1966) –
Marden does not paint trees or cliffs. His objective, rather, is to give
visual form to an inner quality of things. In this relatively narrowly
defined field of non-representational painting he develops a very rich
vocabulary of form, bridging the gap between rational calculation and
almost religious intuition. Such deep concentration requires a great deal
of time, and the artist often works on a painting for many years.
Brice
Marden, Study for the Muses (Hydra Version), 1991-95/1997
©2006
Brice Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
|
Brice Marden, Epitaph Painting 5, 1997-2001
©2006
Brice Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Influenced
by chinese calligraphy
and poetry by Han
Shan, with which he became acquainted on trips to the Far East, the
graphic became increasingly important in his work starting in the
mid-1980s. The series Cold Mountain constitutes an apex of this
development. Using black paint, he wrote characters on a white ground. The
lines penetrate one another, are constantly overpainted, finally becoming
independent. The writing becomes a pictorial language. The expressive
touch calls to mind the complex, energetically charged tangles of lines in Jackson
Pollock's works. For Brice Marden, Pollock's assertion "I am nature"
is one of the most important statements of modern art. And that is not
surprising, if one compares the art and intellectual attitudes of the two
American artists. In his Action
Paintings, for which he let paint drop from the brush or directly from
the tube on to the canvas, Pollock sought to give direct painterly
expression to his elementary nature. A powerful energy is manifested in
the intense gesture of his drip paintings, which he often created in a
trance. An astonishing physical and psychical density is noticeable in the
multilayered snarl of lines.
Brice
Marden, 4 and 3 Drawing, 1979-81
Phil
Schrager Collection, Omaha
©2006
Brice Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
As
opposed to Pollock, Brice Marden is not an inventor, not a radical renewer
of art. Marden, who was born in 1938 (two and a half years after Pollock),
views himself, rather, as a mediator between people and the invisible
spiritual forces in them. In this role, he takes up the traditions of
Modernism and Abstract
Expressionism and reflects them in an up-to-date context. Just hoow he
exploits and redefines the possibilities of abstract painting can be seen
in two of his most recent works, shown publicly for the first time in the
retrospective. The two six-part works of The Propitious Garden of Plane
Image (2000-2006), on which Marden labored for years on end, form
something like the essence of his creativity, and with their enormous
dimensions the intensity of his painting can be apprehended with all the
senses.
The
Propitious Garden of Plane Image, Second Version, 2000-2006
Courtesy
Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
©2006
Brice Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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