Martin Assig – Because I Am Human

Ten major themes serve to structure the approximately 400 works of the exhibition, which presents numerous large-format panel paintings as well as multipart series of small format works on paper from the 1990s until the present. Their titles – Auraautoren, Erzählung am Boden, Kleid, Schmerz, Seelen, St. Paul, Tuschen, Übungen zur Verwunderung , Wasser und Vorrat. Welt – provide insight into the developmental strands and narratives featured in the work of Martin Assig.

“The recollection of primeval human experience, impressions and needs appear especially relevant against the backdrop of the crises of the last three years. The Martin Assig exhibition “Because I´m Human” has much to offer that is thought-provoking, but then also much that is beautiful and consoling. The title is synonymous with the awareness of one´s own being as a sum of unrepeatable moments: your life is your wealth!”, comments Walter Smerling, Director of MKM.

Drawing on encaustic, painting with wax, tempera colors and currently acrylic, the artist generates his very own personal aesthetics. At once poetic and atmospherically dense, this approach is expressed in abstract works as well as in those in which the figurative gesture remains recognizable – but especially so in the cycles that were created in the last twenty years and are characterized by the motif and handwritten elements sharing pictorial space.

“I think and feel in images and in words. Looking, seeing are rarely connected to simultaneous inner speech. While I speak in pictures, I can be reflecting on something else. It is up to me to find a correlation for this perceived multi-faceted imprecision and simultaneity in my work”, is how the artist describes what he does.

BIOGRAPHY

Martin Assig, born 1959 in Schwelm, in the German state of Northrhine-Westphalia, studied at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, from 1979 – 1985. In 1993, he received the Käthe Kollwitz Prize and, in 2001, the Ludwig Gries Prize. His work is represented in public and private collections and are presented nationally and internationally in solo and group shows, for example in Kunstmuseum Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen, Magdeburg (2019), in the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2015) and in the Haus am Waldsee Berlin (2015). Martin Assig lives and works in Berlin and Brädikow.

Press images: www.stiftungkunst.de/…

Catalogue

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with essays by Wolfgang Ulrich and Kay Heymer and a conversation between Matin Assig and Walter Smerling (German/English, 312 p., 236 color illustrations, museum edition 38 €, published by Schirmer/Mosel)

Organization / Sponsoring

The exhibition “Weil ich Mensch bin – Martin Assig” is a project of the Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur e.V. Bonn. The exhibition is curated by Walter Smerling, co-curator Kay Heymer.

The exhibition is supported by Evonik Industries AG and Sparkasse Duisburg

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