Pop and Punk Drawings by German Artist Marc Brandenburg at Hamburger Kunsthalle

HAMBURG.- The artist Marc Brandenburg (*1965 in Berlin) has recently emerged as one of the best-known draftsmen of his generation. Affected by the pop and punk culture, Brandenburg documents aggressions, excesses and social exclusions in his graphite drawings as a reality of today’s society. His works are images of a subversive nightlife, portraits or extremely zoomed-in details of ordinary objects. These images seem to be harmless but turn to become symbols of experienced violence and power. Velocity and movement are the most recurrent motives of Brandenburgs works. His models are own photos and images. He alters them into negatives by dissecting them in a complex copying process. Also the technical results of this copying process are part of the artwork at the end: A free hand drawing.

Brandenburgs reversals have a stunning effect: portraits or images distorted to the point of abstraction take on an intensity and sharpness that alienates the subject while lending them a ruthless precision at the same time. Nevertheless, Brandenburg does not believe in the power of the ultimate, singular image – instead he often hangs his drawings close together in a manner that resembles film sequences. Comparable to the style of American television series his cloudy works make spaces of time visible. According to Brandenburg, it is through this series of images that a dialogue emerges between the individual pictures: “It’s about what cannot be depicted; it’s about the aura, the spaces in between.”

Marc Brandenburg chose consciously the Hall of Master Drawings as location in the Hamburger Kunsthalle for this exhibition. About 60 drawings are being presented in a very special atmosphere of presentation: at black light.

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