Stefan Krause Victor Man: Artist of the Year 2014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Friedhelm H端tte On the Exhibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Bogdan Ghiu A Contemporary Nigredo Re-Compositions on the Operating Table . . . . . . . . . . 24 Alessandro Rabottini Icarus with No Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Alexandru Monciu-Sudinski Helplessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Mediaeval Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 List of Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Artist of the Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
FriedhelM hütte
On the exhibition
One thing was clear from the very outset: organizing a comprehensive presentation of Victor Man’s work in an exhibition and an accompanying publication would require a Herculean effort on the part of everyone involved, but by the same token it would offer a unique opportunity. Man’s oeuvre is one of the most idiosyncratic in recent contemporary art—his dark, generally small format, almost intimate paintings resist quick reception. You have to walk up close to them and linger there for a long time in order to truly grasp them. Man’s painting technique is so multilayered, in the true sense of the word, that it can scarcely be reproduced. His paintings keep their secrets. Together with the artist, we took on the challenge of realizing an exhibition as well as creating a catalog that makes Man’s work accessible, and at the same time does justice to its complexity. After more than a year of intense cooperation, this book has now been completed. The exhibition, entitled Zephir, will be on view at the Deutsche Bank KunstHalle and will subsequently travel to other international institutions. In the end, our high expectations for the project were exceeded. In addition to receiving nearly all of the loans we requested, we were able to present new, never before seen paintings, as well as a glass sculpture created specifically for the show. Victor Man, who was born in Cluj, Romania in 1974, creates his paintings in a very traditional manner, layer for layer, glaze upon glaze. They can scarcely be penetrated by the eye, or the intellect. In them, collective and biographical memories are interwoven with myths and references to philosophy and art history. In his glass work, Man adeptly transfers the complexity of his painting into three dimensions. As an artistic material, glass is just as traditional as oil paint. Physically, it lets light shine through it, is transparent per se. Man’s glass image radiates into the space, is window and projection at once. The interplay of light, color, and space gives rise to an artwork that is both palpable and intangible. None of these art experiences would be possible without the extraordinary commitment of Victor Man, so first and foremost I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the artist. He was supported by his assistant
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Nora Kronemeyer. From the very beginning phase of preparations for this exhibition, we received valuable assistance from galleries Blum & Poe in Los Angeles, Gladstone in New York / Brussels, Neu in Berlin, Plan B in Cluj / Berlin, and Zero in Milan. We’re very proud that we have the renowned curators Okwui Enwezor, Hou Hanru, Udo Kittelmann, and Victoria Noorthoorn, who make up the bank’s Global Art Advisory Council, to nominate the “Artist of the Year.” Special thanks go to Britta Färber for overseeing communications and also for the enlightening exchange of ideas. I would also like to thank her and Alina Friedrichs, in whose hands the overall coordination of the program and the exhibition lay, for supervising this catalog. They were assisted by Linus Lütcke. Many thanks are also due to Berlin-based colleagues Svenja Gräfin von Reichenbach and Sara Bernshausen, whose many years of experience enabled them to overcome numerous challenges in the realization of the exhibition. They were energetically assisted by Kathrin Conrad, Daniela Mewes, and Steffen Zarutzki. Thanks to Katrin Jahnke and Jörg Klambt for supervising the KunstHalle’s ArtStore and the edition. The technical preparation lay in the competent hands of Uwe Rommel and his team. The artist’s glass work was produced in the worldrenowned Derix Glasstudios under the supervision of Wilhelm Derix and Katharina Plattner. The “stucco marmorino” was executed by Alan Graf. I am also grateful to Roland Bittner, who insured the exhibit against all risks. Friederike Beseler was responsible for the conservatorial care of the show. Kerstin Riedel, the designer of the catalogue, created a fascinating book in collaboration with the artist. Along with editor Angelika Thill, she supervised the production, for which Silvia Pesci and Andrea Albertini from Grafiche Damiani lent their support. The texts by Bogdan Ghiu and Alessandro Rabottini engage knowledgeably with Victor Man’s oeuvre, and we thank the authors for their contributions. The translations were expertly done by Burke Barrett, Alistair Ian Blyth, and Anne Ruzzante. Fabienne Alexopoulos and Kerstin Riedel designed the accompanying communications media with texts by Oliver Koerner von Gustorf, Maria Morais, and Achim Drucks. Felix von Boehm and Constantin Lieb from bboxxfilme were in charge of the documentary film about the project. The encounter with Victor Man’s artistic universe was extremely inspiring for all of us. Being able to now share our experience with the readers of this publication and exhibition visitors gives us great joy. Friedhelm Hütte Global Head of Art, Deutsche Bank AG
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Untitled
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2006 – 07 Oil on canvas
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Untitled
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2007 Oil on canvas mounted on wood
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Untitled, from If Mind Were All there Was
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2008 Oil on canvas
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BOgdan ghiu
a Contemporary Nigredo
head severed by the painter. Perhaps this is why the head has been guillotined by the upper part of the frame: so that it might be released, a release that is entrusted, however, to the indeterminacy of pure pictoriality. Consequently, there is a becoming, a release and an adventure, an interval between forms and kingdoms, whose enactment is entrusted to painting, as a mission that only it was and will be able to carry out; to be more precise, it is entrusted with the space of painting, to pictoriality as opening, in which the gaze is subjected to a Nordic-vegetal, chthonic-aquatic coloration, like moss, seaweed, green, regenerative humus.
re-Compositions on the Operating table
What happens to the head in the picture? Painting. In a recent work, or opus, by Victor Man from 2013, entitled The Chandler,— the words work and opus are, as we shall see, not at all anodyne in this specific instance—an apparently female human apparition, wracked, seemingly crushed by the surface of the painting, as if beneath the glass pane of a display case, clenches her knees tightly, almost violently together, turning them to one side, as if under constraint, as if forced to modesty. But as is only natural, the violence reaches its culmination higher up, at her head, which is severed by the painting’s frame, by the operating field of the work; it is no longer to be seen in its proper place, but is recouped, reintegrated within the field of vision by the fact that the human apparition, thusly mangled and decomposed, holds it in her arms, in her lap, on her knees: the person holds her head on her knees. Here, however, on the right temple, the head embarks upon a process, a distortion, a metamorphosis, it goes haywire, it is on the verge of turning into something else, of being transformed into the head of some other, a-human creature, which it seemingly emanates, and from which it emerges, like a thought: the severed head with wide-open, dreaming eyes seems to be growing large ears or horns, it is not very clear what exactly. It is on the verge of becoming something else, of falling prey to becoming animal, as Deleuze would put it. The space of the interval, the process, the metamorphosis, is the undepictability itself, that is, the space of pure pictoriality, an adventure and a self-contained work between forms, entities, identities, kingdoms. Purely pictorial, as if in an interpretative delirium of Aby Warburg’s history of art, the severed head seems to depart, purely pictorially, in Boticellian ringlets, in a cloud or in a golden mist. A thought-painting, the product of a
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Untitled
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2007 Oil on canvas mounted on wood, wooden stick, wire, and leather gloves
In Untitled (Wolf), from 2007, an animal pelt is affixed, cladded, and clamped with the same violence of attachment, the same firmness of juxtaposition, of composition, by means of a mechanism like an instrument of torture, in a kind of sacrificial worship; its head is pressed against the mask of a deity with a female human face, with large empty eyes, like a vacant stencil that anybody might come and inhabit. Once again, the head is guillotined, the animal seems to be sacrificed on the altar of man’s eternal self-deification. Anthropomorphic deification needs to suppress its animality in order to absorb its strength. But in order to do so, the animal is held by force, affixed from without, rather than from within, to the voided human, which has been turned into a symbol. Man and beast, the Great Wolf, the Man-Wolf, forcibly held together, a hybridization and metamorphosis in actu, an ontological collage-assemblage. The artist engages in painting as in an operation; he operates pictorially, he operates on the painting.
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On Relative Loneliness
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2009 Gladstone Gallery, New York
« Oui, j’ai les yeux fermés à votre lumière. Je suis une bête, un nègre. Mais je puis être sauvé. Vous êtes de faux nègres, vous maniaques, féroces, avares. Marchand, tu es nègre; magistrat, tu es nègre; général, tu es nègre; empereur, vieille démangeaison, tu es nègre: tu as bu d’une liqueur non taxée, de la fabrique de Satan.– Ce peuple est inspiré par la fièvre et le cancer. Infirmes et vieillards sont tellement respectables qu’ils demandent à être bouillis. – Le plus malin est de quitter ce continent, où la folie rôde pour pourvoir d’otages ces misérables. J’entre au vrai royaume des enfants de Cham. » (Arthur Rimbaud, Une Saison en enfer).
“Yes, my eyes are closed to your light. I am an animal, a nigger. But I can be saved. You are fake niggers; maniacs, savages, misers, all of you. Businessman, you’re a nigger; judge, you’re a nigger; general, you’re a nigger: you’ve drunk a liquor no one taxes, from Satan’s still.—This nation is inspired by fever and cancer. Invalids and old men are so respectable that they ask to be boiled.—The best thing is to quit that continent when madness prowls, out to supply hostages for these wretches. I will enter the true kingdom of the sons of Ham.” (Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell, translated by Paul Schmidt, Harper Colophon Books, Harper & Row, 1976).
Noir and Nègre, Black and Nigger: Blackness and the animal. Fake, artificial, technical animals and genuine animals, sacrificed on the altar of the former. Blackness is the Beast, in respect to Salvation. Nigredo, the black work and black operation. Rimbaud’s “liquor no one taxes,” the “black” or at best “grey” market, corruption and covert trafficking, the illicit, cursed transfusion, whereby we are secretly but eternally fed and which does nothing other than to reveal and repeat art, on the black, in the darkness, under the impunity and alibi of the aesthetic. Painting ventures to show, to divulge, merely by evoking it, this illegal traffic in blood precisely in order to engage in it, to operate on it, to perpetrate it: art itself on the black. In another work, another operation, also Untitled, from 2006, the picture, the painted, operated upon image of an (apparent) woman dressed diabolically in latex or white cling-film, with empty-black eyes (emanating an inner darkness, rather than empty-white eyes, like those concealed
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Bogdan Ghiu A Contemporary Nigredo
in the totemic mask of the Wolf in the aforementioned Untitled), a stencil-woman (a negative highlighting the negative) already operated upon in the painted image, sits on an animal pelt, in the same position as in The Chandler, with knees violently constrained, pressed together and turned aside. The same, alreadyoperated upon painted image, on an animal pelt, also occurs two years later, in Ubiquitous You, from 2008. Ubiquitous indeed!
Untitled
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2007 Hoia Forest, Cluj
Untitled
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2009 Centre international d’art et du paysage, L’Île de Vassivière
In another painting entitled Untitled (what other titles could be given, what else could be openly declared, said here?), from 2012, itself existing in two versions, the same placement on, the same affixation, cladding, the same forced superposition, a kind of collage along the vertical, a deep, vertiginous, abyssal grafting, image upon image: a hand, a miniaturized toy skull, like an amulet or key fob. In Untitled (André Malraux, La Statuaire, Main vouée à Jupiter Héliopolitain IIe – IIIe siècle ap. JC Musée du Louvre)—what a subtitle the non-title conceals!—the same placement on (through juxtaposition), an affixation en abyme of the minusculized totem to a human hand, like the imprinting of a line of life, of fate, of luck on a palm. We see, we witness, we are shown, seemingly, along the depth of the painting, in exfoliated, de-sedimented strata, from an archaeological perspective, the apparition of the totem and the symbol. The perspective goes from being (apparently) physical to being cognitive-cultural, epistemic-historical, gnoseological, spiritual (the interior of the painting’s surface is human trans-psychological interiority), a meta-representation of macro-schemata of thought and collective-unconscious creation. *
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Pagan Space
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2010 Oil on canvas mounted on wood
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Pagan Space
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2010 Oil on canvas mounted on wood
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Untitled (E.O. P.)
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2011 – 12 Oil on canvas
Untitled
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2013 Oil on canvas
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The Third Cover
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2013 Exhibition view Galerie Neu / MD72, Berlin
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The Chandler
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2013 Watercolor on paper
The Chandler
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2013 Oil on canvas
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Untitled
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2012 Ink on paper
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Pink Chair
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2012 Oil on canvas
Untitled
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2012 Pencil on paper
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Collections
Courtesy
Photocredits
We would like to express our thanks to the following collections:
Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles: p. 13, 15, 33, 34 / 35, 36 / 37, 38, 106 / 107, 133, 135, 136, 137, 144 / 145
Filippo Armellin: Page 47, 63; Giorgio Benni: p. 97, 119; Elena Datrino: p. 21, 99, 147; Fred Dott: p. 109; Annet Gelink Gallery: p. 149; Philippe De Gobert: p. 53, 64, 71, 73, 77, 90 / 91 / 92, 115, 127; Stefan Korte: p. 95, 105, 110 / 111, 112, 117, 120, 159; Achim Kukulies: p. 25; Maarten Laupman: S. 66 / 67; George Maier: p. 28; Roberto Marossi: p. 49, 50, 51, 57, 140; Jacopo Menzani: p. 43; Aurélien Mole: p. 89, 101; André Morin: p. 29, 30 / 31; Pascal Pazanda: p. 154; Ilya Rabonovich: p. 23; David Regen: p. 2, 17, 20, 26 / 27, 41, 44, 60, 131, 139, 143, 151, 153, 157, 184; Adrian Sabaˇu: p. 4; Mathias Schormann: p. 11, 19, 59, 69, 77, 79, 82, 102 / 103, 105, 121, 123, 125, 128 / 129, 155, 161, 163, 165, 167, 169, 170 / 171, 172 / 173, 174 / 175, 176 / 177, 178 / 179, 181, 183, 185; Uwe Walter: p. 75; Joshua White: p. 13, 15, 33, 34 / 35, 36 / 37, 38, 85 / 86, 106 / 107, 133, 135, 136, 137, 144 / 145.
Nach einem smärchen Collection Sandra and After a Japanese Giancarlo Bonollo, ted by Ingeborg Italy rliner Verlag, al edition). Collection of Carlo Bronzini Vender, manian edition:New York tele: Repovestire Cigrang Frères Collection pular japonez ra Ion Creangă,Defares Collection, d (pp. 10 / 11). Amsterdam
Rey © 2013
Collection of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg Collection of Barbara Gladstone, New York
“Neputința” Collection Edoardo Gnemmi, d “Peisaj Milan aeval Landscape) Collection Guillaume Houzé, ed in the Paris or: Schițe și andru Monciu- Collection of Ninah & Michael est: Editura Lynne pp. 104 – 112, Kadist Art Foundation ish translation, th, is here J.C. Marian first time. Collection My Private, Milano
Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels: p. 2, 17, 20, 26 / 27, 29, 41, 44, 53, 60, 64, 69, 71, 73, 77, 89, 90, 91, 92, 109, 115, 127, 131, 143, 151, 153, 154, 155, 157, 184 Courtesy of the artist and Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York and Geneva: p. 69 Courtesy of the artist and Plan B, Cluj / Berlin: p. 28, 75, 85 / 86, 97, 119 Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Neu, Berlin: p. 95, 105, 117, 120, 121, 123, 159 Courtesy of the artist and ZERO, Milan: p. 47, 50, 51, 57, 99, 140, 147 If not mentioned otherwise, courtesy of the artist.
This book is published in conjunction with the exhibition Ill. p. 74 / 75: Drei kleine Affen. Nach einem japanischen Volksmärchen [Three little apes. After a Japanese fairy tale], illustrated by Ingeborg Meyer-Rey, Altberliner Verlag, Berlin 1974 (original edition). Here, after the Romanian edition: Trei maimuțe mititele: Repovestire după un basm popular japonez (Bucharest: Editura Ion Creangă, 1977), unpaginated (pp. 10 / 11). Ingeborg Meyer-Rey © 2013 Grischa Meyer p. 80 – 93 The short stories “Neputința” (Helplessness) and “Peisaj medieval” (Mediaeval Landscape) were first published in the collection Rebarbor: Schițe și povestiri, by Alexandru MonciuSudinski (Bucharest: Editura Eminescu, 1971), pp. 104 – 112, 144 – 147. The English translation, by Alistair Ian Blyth, is here published for the first time.
Artist of the Year 2014 Deutsche Bank KunstHalle, Berlin March 21 until June 21, 2014 Zachęta—National Gallery of Art, Warsaw July 2014 until August 2014 Haus der Kunst, Munich October 2014 until January 2015
Edition:
Deutsche Bank AG
Deutsche Bank KunstHalle ISBN 978 - 3 - 942294 - 26 - 3 (English) ISBN 978 - 3 - 942294 - 25 - 6 (German)
Stefan Krause, Member of the Management Board & Chair of the Global Art Advisory Council Thorsten Strauß, Global Head of Communications, Corporate Social Responsibility, Public Affairs & Art Friedhelm Hütte, Global Head of Art Concept: Victor Man Editing: Britta Färber, Alina Friedrichs, Friedhelm Hütte Assistance: Nora Kronemeyer, Linus Lütcke Copyediting: Thill Verlagsbüro, Köln / Jon Shelton Translations: From German to English: Burke Barrett From Romanian to English (Ghiu, Monciu-Sudinski): Alistair Ian Blyth
Collection of Jen Pinto, Boston Private Collection, Belgium Private collection, Como David Roberts Collection, London The Sander Collection Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Collection of Beth Swofford Andro Wekua Collection of Mary and Harold Zlot, San Francisco
You can find information on this exhibition and many others at www.kq-daily.de Hatje Cantz books are available internationally at selected bookstores. For more information about our distribution partners please visit our homepage at www.hatjecantz.com ISBN 978 - 3 - 7757- 3807- 1 (English) ISBN 978 - 3 - 7757- 3806 - 4 (German) Printed in Italy Front cover illustration: Untitled, 2012
Graphic design: Kerstin Riedel, Berlin
p. 2 Embroidered curtain
Typeface: Deutsche Bank Univers, Ionic
p. 4 Untitled, 1984 – 85 Tempera on cardboard
Printing and binding: Grafiche Damiani S.r.l., Bologna
Collection Reydan Weiss
Trade edition published by Hatje Cantz Verlag Zeppelinstrasse 32 73760 Ostfildern Germany Tel. +49 711 4405 - 200 Fax +49 711 4405 - 220 www.hatjecantz.com
Cover flaps: © Anna-Bella Papp
Paper: Phoenix Motion Xantur, 170 g/m2
Soya Collection
Deutsche Bank ArtShop 9999165
From Italian to English (Rabottini): Anne Ruzzante
Reproductions and production: Grafiche Damiani S.r.l., Bologna
Rodica Seward, New York
pp. 30 / 31, 66 / 67 Drawings by Victor Man, 1984 © 2014 for the reproduced works by Victor Man: the artist © 2014 Deutsche Bank, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, and authors We thank all holders of image or text usage rights for their friendly approval of publication. Should there be any mistakes in the identity of a copyright holder, we kindly ask the legal entity to contact us at mailbox.kunst@db.com.
We would also like to thank all those private collections and lenders, who prefer to remain anonymous.
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Victor Man: Zephir
Editor:
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