Opening in the presence of the artist on Saturday, November 29th from 7pm to 9pm.
PRESS RELEASE
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is pleased to announce an exhibition by the emerging Berlin artist,
Marc Brandenburg, which will include 18 new drawings of various sizes.
At first glance, Brandenburg's delicate pencil drawings seem like negatives of snapshots
from a bizarre parallel world. His photo-realistic scenes of demonstrators, flag-waving football
fans, clowns, fairgrounds, portraits of friends and relatives, fountains and over-inflated
Christmas decorations have a menacing effect. The silvery, shiny texture of the graphite
surfaces is combined with finely nuanced, tapering contours. Everything is bathed in an
ethereal light. The methods, practices, and techniques that Brandenburg employs are evident
in his trademark black-and-white drawings.
With regards to the tension and energy in his drawings, Diedrich Diederichsen writes in his
catalogue essay, that “Brandenburgʼs drawings are executed in the style of spiritual
exercises...On the one hand, this pressure, the ecstasy of production, is superfluous,
because it cannot be seen by looking at the drawings; on the other hand, it is their conditio
sine qua non. While artists like On Kawara depict their working method as a spiritual
exercise, Brandenburg does the opposite: he produces something that seemingly has
nothing to do with the working method, but can only be explained and described with
reference to it.”
Many of the drawings deal with situations that could potentially lead to a loss of control:
sexuality, football hooligans, ravers, hordes of people, as well as physical exertion, excess,
vomit. Excess and extreme definition and contours are juxtaposed against one another. This
creates a sense of serenity around which the excess revolves. The drawings deal with form,
and itʼs limitations. They address the balance and draw parallels between control and loss of
control, form and formlessness.
Born in Berlin in 1965, Brandenburg grew up in Texas and Germany. In the early 1990s he
shot to fame with his forceful graphite drawings, and within a very short time he rose to the
top league of the young German art scene. His works are included in collections such as that
of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, the Hamburger
Kunsthalle, and the Museum of Modern Art Frankfurt.
A book will be available with an essay by Diedrich Diederichsen (in English and German).
For further information regarding this exhibition, please contact Victoire de Pourtalès at
+ 33 1 42 72 99 00, [email protected].
For press inquiries, please contact Alessandra Bellavita, [email protected]
To obtain visual elements, please contact Zahra KH-Alam, [email protected]
