ARNDT Berlin is delighted to present the solo presentation of works by Marin Majic at this years' "abc - art berlin contemporary" 2015: Hall B.

September 18 - September 20, 2015 | 12 am - 7 pm
Opening September 17, 2015 | 4 - 9 pm

Majic’s work arouses curiosity in the viewer. Majic is engaged in the field of tension between the known, knowable and the unknown, the difficulty to classify and the inaccessible. The familiar and photorealistic sceneries, as well as the embedded figures of his earlier work, are slowly disappearing in these new works. The representation of nature, that once served only as a background, now becomes the actual protagonist. Majic achieves, through this reduction, that the works create themselves. They are no longer controlled by the artist. You can almost feel the release of the constraints and therefore a freedom in the works.

In 3000 Blah a heap piles up amidst a nondescript landscape. The mass appears to be static and dominant at the centre of the painting. Or does the heap nevertheless begin to melt? Where nothing was left to chance in previous works, Majic’s new works assume independent forms and grow like an organism. Through the bright sky a drama is produced, hovering like a halo over the indefinable mass, but is itself again negated by the overall scenery.

This drama returns again in another large-scale work. A chaos of waves dominates the painting. Majic creates a background here that seems to be completely uncontrollable and yet causes a force of attraction in the viewer. Here, the painting process is clearly prominent. In the initial phase the paintings appear confused and abstract through the mere application of different colour combinations. Only through the process of repeatedly sanding smooth the many layers of paint does the work take form, one that radiates an incredible vividness.

Where waves of water still bring movement into this work, it seems another work, in which a colourful forest can be seen, is completely static. This dense and entangled forest has an almost claustrophobic effect. The individual trees are a self-contained form, but through their configuration, the whole image expands to become a self-contained form. This apposition leads to an infiniteness of the work, which is held together only by the predetermined dimension of the canvas. Just as in 3000 Blah the individual trees seem to melt. The bright applications of colour create a mysticism, which emphasizes the immensity of the forest.

The smaller works still include images of people and nature. However, they don’t tell us familiar stories, but create a tension which brings the viewer in a conflict, like the head of a happily smiling child, whose body is squeezed inside a dripping hill. This child’s head appears again in another work, at the end of a curling flower garland. The assumed recognition of something familiar is juxtaposed with illogicalness and eeriness.

CV
Marin Majic (1979, Frankfurt am Main) studied from 2004 to 2010 at the Academy of Visual Arts in Zagreb. Since 2008 he has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Croatia and the USA, as well as New Fragments 6, Gallery Mali salon, Rijeka, Croatia (2009), After the Fall, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York, USA (2010), After the Fall, The Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville TN, USA (2011), Love: The First of the 7 Virtues, The Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, USA (2015) or NGORONGORO, Gallery Weekend Berlin, Germany et al. Solo exhibitions include Marin Majic, Marc Straus Gallery, New York, USA (2013), Nursery, Arndt Berlin, Germany (2014).

STATION BERLIN
Luckenwalder Str. 4-6
D-10963 Berlin

We look forward to welcoming you to our booth!
If you have further questions, please contact Valeska Hageney (valeska@arndtfineart.com).