Marcel Odenbach Exhibition
Anton Kern Gallery
[Image: Studio view, Tupac, 2015, ink and collage on paper, 98 7/16 x 59 1/16 in. Courtesy the artist and Anton Kern Gallery, New York. Photo: Vesko Gösel.]
This event has ended.
In his seventh exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery, German video and collage artist Marcel Odenbach presents five large works on paper along with a group of objects. The eye-catching centerpiece is a portrait of rapper and songwriter Tupac Shakur (1971-1996), surrounded by images of shrubs and trees in urban green areas, a pair of gardener’s overalls drying on a clothesline, and five collaged African seed pods in a display case.
Viewed at a distance the collages convey a sense of tranquility and casualness, however upon closer inspection, the subjects’ latent histories are slowly revealed through hundreds of images that make up the larger work. Images relating to the history of the civil rights movement and early 1990s American pop culture depict a 23-year-old Tupac at the height of his fame, in all his serene coolness and splendor, even showing a touch of fragility. Correspondingly, the collages, entitled Grünfläche 1-3 (Greene Zone 1-3) and Nach getaner Arbeit (After the Work is Done), reveal underlying stories of religious delusion, racism, and murder. In a reversal to the apparent covering-up and veiling of the truth through the metaphor of unrestrained growth of urban shrubbery, Odenbach has taken five objects from nature, large seed pods he collected in Ghana, and in turn covered them with images referencing a variety of stories that range from the life of Irish-born painter Francis Bacon to current events such as the murder of twelve people at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Media
Schedule
from May 28, 2015 to July 03, 2015
Opening Reception on 2015-05-28 from 18:00 to 20:00