Me, myself and I? (detail), 2016,
80 × 70 cm
Courtesy Bernhard Martin
Week 3 / Monday 31 July–Sunday 06 August
Bernhard Martin
02.08.2017 18:00 / Pictorial decadence
Location: Galerie 5020
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Language: English
Location: Residenzplatz 10, 5020 SalzburgTaking the example of his own work, Bernhard Martin will discuss the question of what contemporary painting could look like in our sensation-hungry age. Can painting today survive autonomously beside other media – and how can it be made into challenging entertainment? How can we – by sampling, finding innovative topics, generating fresh motifs, using diverse techniques and modes of operation – achieve painting as an independent medium in its own right, untainted by the odour of reactionism? -
Bernhard Martin, born in Hanover (DE) in 1966, lives in Berlin. His works, enhanced with supposed fragments of reality, reveal a fathomless universe of constructs bizarre in both style and content. His figures live and interact in this system of his own creation, far beyond any generally accepted values and conventions. The artist invests meticulously in his own mutability, constantly ready to experiment in all directions; his main interest lies in the eccentric, in showing the enriching potential of what is out of the ordinary. His radical, masterly way of combining different styles of painting to create complete narratives (“I like to paint my own films”) makes Martin one of the principal representatives of his generation.
Solo exhibitions
2015 Fred Thieler Prize, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin. 2012 Diktatur der Hormone, Thomas Schulte Galerie, Berlin. 2011 Eissalon Bernhard Martin, Kunstraum Deutsche Bank, Salzburg (AT). 2008 Thema verfehlt, Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg (DE). Gott und ich wir wissen’s schon, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg. 2005 Villa Arson, Nice (FR). 2002 Ich zeige Ihnen gerne meinen Nassbereich, MAMCO, Geneva (CH). 2001 PS.1, MoMA, New York, NY (US).
Group exhibitions
2015 Malerei Böse, Hamburger Kunstverein, Hamburg (DE). 2014 Die Halluzinierte Welt, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin. 2010 Let’s Dance, MAC/ VAL Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine (FR). Hamsterwheel, curated by Franz West, Le Printemps de Septembre à Toulouse (FR), Centre d’Art Santa Monica, Barcelona (ES). 2005 Max Ernst und die klassische Moderne, Kunsthalle Mannheim (DE). 2004 The future has a silver lining, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich. 2003 deutschemalereizweitausenddrei, Kunstverein, Frankfurt (DE). 2000 ein|räumen, Kunsthalle, Hamburg (DE).Publications
Fred-Thieler-Preis, exh. cat. Berlinische Galerie, 2015.
Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Susanne Pfleger (ed.), Bernhard Martin. Thema verfehlt, DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 2009.
Villa Arson, Nice (ed.), Touch of Charme, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern 2005.