Markus Linnenbrink "Come a little closer"
Tomlinson Kong Contemporary
This event has ended.
Tomlinson Kong Contemporary presents their inaugural exhibition by German-born artist, Markus Linnenbrink, entitled "come a little closer," his first solo show in New York City since 2006.
For this occassion, Linnenbrink will create a painting installation on the walls of the gallery in vibrant, multi-colored ink drips and horizontal bars of color that shift the interior architecture of the space through his play with perspective. Also on view will be a grouping of new, large-scale paintings on photographs, as well as sculptures made of densely layered epoxy resin, abstract "reverse" paintings, and new examples of his seminal drip paintings.
The large paintings on photographs show images taken by the artist's father (a gifted, amateur photographer) of street scenes, strangers, or the artist as a young child with his siblings and family friends in varying, oftentimes remote, locations around the world. Linnenbrink uses the photographs in a painterly way and as foundational images that serve as a counterforce to the verticality of the layered epoxy drips that cover and reveal certain elements of the photographs' compositions. The psychological impact of the individualized palettes chosen for each piece is compounded by the emotional quality of the photograph to create a deeply subjective work. With Linnenbrink's compelling approach to abstract painting, the photographs provide an undeniable narrative that the drips seem to both elaborate and reject.
For example, MEINWILDESHERZ, loosely translated from the German meaning, "my wild heart," shows the artist’s sister, mother, and family friend gathered around a young bird. The rich, darker colored drips in this work focus one's gaze on his sister's expression of awe that is dynamically thrust into the foreground while the rest of the image recedes into a lighter-toned palette. The undulating composition between foreground and background requires the viewer to unpack the work one layer at a time by slowly retraining the eye to look newly at this image. Just as Linnenbrink's on-site installation shifts the architecture of the gallery's walls, so too does Linnenbrinks's approach to painting shift the composition of the photograph.
The tour de force of the show, a sculpture entitled BUILDINGSTEAMWITHAGRAINOFSALT, is a severalhundred pound, almost topographical form consisting of dozens of layers of colored epoxy embedded with countless examples of detritus either found by or given to Linnenbrink. Getting lost in its many crevices and valleys, one catches glimpses and edges of cultural artifacts locked in time and is entranced by its sensuous, artificial surface. Linnenbrink's sculptures take many months, if not years, to make (six in the case of one example) and, unlike the paintings that are active in their making, they are sedentary but equally evocative evidence of the artist's dedication to materiality and abstraction.
Markus Linnenbrink was born in 1961 in Dortmund, Germany. He studied at the Gesamthochschule, Kassel and at the Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin. He has created numerous site-specific installations, notably at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, and the Museum Neue Galerie, Kassel, and most recently at the JVA/Prison in Duesseldorf Rath, Germany. Recent solo exhibitions include Fiedler Tauber Contemporary, Berlin; The Columns Gallery, Seoul; and Galería Max Estrella, Madrid. His work can be found in such international collections as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; The Ministry of Culture, The Hague, The Netherlands; and UCLA Hammer Museum, University of California Los Angeles, CA, amongst others. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York
Media
Schedule
from September 16, 2011 to October 29, 2011
Opening Reception on 2011-10-15 from 18:00 to 20:00