The new show „Made for Cologne“, which Marcus Neufanger created as a holistic installation expressly for the Van der Grinten Galerie space, presents the entirety of the artist’s 2020–2021painting production from the ‘Books’ work group. Together with the ‘Books’, the ‘Portraits’ and the ‘Vanity Plates’ comprise the three ongoing, ever-expanding blocks of work in the Marcus Neufanger oeuvre. Since the 90s, the artist has used these work series to explore as a continuum the point of engagement between an “extended” understanding of art and its “conventional” opposite.

Though the term “conceptual art” is often attributed Joseph Beuys, it actually stems from Marcel Duchamp who, in 1913/14 began to deploy his “ready mades”, print works, fakes, theories, and stratagems of infiltration and occupation to override the sole claim to valid artistic expression held by the classic instrumentarium. In Duchamps work, idea and depiction were treated equally. This baton was taken up by conceptual artists of the 60s, notably Lawrence Weiner and On Kawara, contemporaries of Beuys, whose “social sculpture” marked the ultimate watershed, forever changing the scope of accepted artistic practice and product.

Marcus Neufanger’s decision (likely a result of his personal background) to position himself in the field of a radical approach to fine art led him to a certain self-restriction, asceticism and concentration, which in turn caused him to become the constant user and resident of his own library, a seemingly endless source of ongoing inquiry and reflection.

In an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, artist Franz Erhard Walther characterizes his love of artists’ books and the exploration of them in a statement that can be aptly applied to Marcus Neufanger as well: “Books are so important, especially because they can end up in the most improbable places. Much farther afield than exhibitions. I’m also interested in books as a medium, because artists put so much time, dedication and energy into making them – they are every bit as important as big shows”. This topic represents a key facet of recent art history, in which themes and strategies of perception and effectiveness and intra-art-world reference systems are called into question. Furthermore, the book as such is also the abiding, universal and multifunctional object of democratization.

When the medium of painting is used to transfer typography and graphic design to the canvas, a common object of daily use such as a book develops a striking effect – due to the enlargement and as an abstractly organized surface of monochrome fields and letters. It is astonishing, how the simple act of enlargement allows the “picture” of a book cover to take on a life of its own. But that’s not all: in his paintings Marcus Neufanger also transforms the aura and the physical presence of the original book into the physicality of his pictures – whether on canvas or cardboard – that arises from the painstaking and complex multi-layering of paint.

It is quite possible that a visitor to the exhibition will discover a favorite book and even a favorite picture.

The Van der Grinten Galerie presents a new Marcus Neufanger solo show, ’Silent Hirst’, an extensive selection of mainly recent large-format drawings from the ‘Portraits’ series.

In this ongoing work series Marcus Neufanger programmatically pursues a concept stringent in both form and content: a single subject – the self-cultivated image of the artist – together with an additional graphic element in the form of lettering/text; a single, vertical format of 100 x 70 cm; a uniform, unvarying technique – oil pastel on paper –; a limited color pallet and a consistently high degree of stylizing. This work, which began in 2005, has produced a thoroughly homogeneous ensemble. There is no conclusion in sight.

Marcus Neufanger uses photographic images of the artists of his/our time as the basis for the portraits. Subjects range from performance artists of the 60s/70s to undisputed icons of contemporary art history to lesser-known figures and Neufanger’s own artist friends. Self-presentation served in the art world as a controllable vehicle for a personal statement about identity, standpoint, positioning and relevance vis-à-vis the pubic long before photography arrived to increasingly magnify the importance of personal image and a pervasive media presence. Artists have good reason for being particularly sensitive to the impact of such images, and are adept at using them to their own advantage. Early works of Albrecht Dürer give us a prime example of how the targeted self-presentation of the artist can be deployed in a clever, calculated and meaningful manner. This theme represents a significant facet of art history in which aspects such as strategies of perception and efficacy as well as frames of reference within art are explored.

By taking the liberty to appropriate pre-existing self-presentations of deceased, older and younger fellow artists, Marcus Neufanger has brought forth a cohesive tableau of faces, physical posture and quotations that offers a very interesting art history lesson: behind his seemingly simple, slightly playful pictures lurks reflection on a profound, even existential issue, one of central significance to the work of every artist. Namely: that of overcoming transience.

Ferdando de Brito (*1956, lives in Hamburg) and Marcus Neufanger (*1964, lives in Schwäbisch Hall) conscientiously devote themselves to developing possible ways of portraying artistic personalities. They use their art to conjure a relationship to the portrayed, to their charisma, their impact and the essence of their work. Whereby the way the two artists approach this subject could hardly be more different. And it is this interesting contrast that the exhibition PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST is presenting at the Van der Grinten Gallery to start off the year 2017, opening on Friday, January 20th at 6 pm, to which we cordially invite you.

Marcus Neufanger—whose works we had introduced in 2014 for the first time in the solo exhibition PORTRAITS, BOOKS, VANITY PLATES as well as in the publication of the same name—presents 40 drawings in the current show that make up the block Titled/Untitled. These cover drawings are also derived from the source material of Neufanger’s extensive artbook library. Artist’s books and catalogues are, since the 1960s, meant to be understood as autonomous works and issued as print editions. To the way an artist is the author of his “work” typographically, aesthetically and as media, or even actually designs it him/herself, apprises us of his thinking, his ideas and his message. Neufanger rightly sees portraiture in this, but abstracts the object book to an image that is readable as a picture but no longer possible to read as a book. Everything else now plays out on the flat picture plane and leads back to the drawing as pure drawing.

Fernando de Brito studied at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg that, among other things, later included a 1982 assistantship to Kenneth Noland in New York. He has dedicated a portion of his diverse artworks to “seismographic” and at times large-scale ballpoint pen drawings that reveal an inner world where artists meet artists. His drawings betray a highly sensitized cumulation. The initially parallel lines seem to have themselves determined the moment of their impact, their own pulse, so spiritedly, so vibratingly do they yet follow an inner order across the paper, forming a finely woven structure that opens up or deepens the pictorial space. De Brito meets Samuel Beckett, Morton Feldman, Elias Canetti or Eva Strittmatter, and each of these portraits is like a cosmos made up of the sum of the facets of the personality that it depicts. Besides these primarily new works, several artist’s books by Fernando de Brito are also on show.

In his engagement with the phenomenon of artist personalities and their reception, Neufanger has skimmed off the cream from the sheer unlimited reservoir of his own library of art books. He deploys the books or other photographic material for the motifs of his work. His field is present-day art and his artistic motif is the portrayal of self-portrayal. The basis for his drawings is the photo portraits of artists who currently play a role in the art scene. Whereby the degree of self-dramatization, that is, how an artist lends his person a public image via the media, is the focus.  The drawings operate through their writ-large plainness such as the corresponding photos redone in contours that Neufanger supplements with an original comment by the artist. Picture and text enter into a well-deliberated bond, but at the same time each is effective on its own.

In his Book Covers and Vanity Plates he goes one step further. He reduces the presence of the artist to his mention on the title of a book or relevant exhibition catalogue. Marcus Neufanger carries typography and graphic design over onto canvas so that a handy and useful object like a book can unfold its stunning effect when magnified into an abstractly organized plane of fields and letters. It is amazing how a “picture” like a book cover can, by simple enlargement, take on a life of its own. However the pictures first attain full autonomy via their surface transformation in paint, i.e., style and pigment translate into a “genuine painting”. The Vanity Plates, that vary greatly in size, ultimately bear only the name of the artist. Epitaphs ordinarily mark the moment when the artist is posthumously accepted into the canon of art history. With Neufanger this kind of memorial plaque lacks dates. The plates are actually a paradox, since most artists whom he portrays as such, enjoy the best of health. In this ironic but trenchant way, the present and the future are locked together.

Marcus Neufanger’s love of, and occupation with, books of artists is on the same level that Hans Ulrich Obrist very aptly characterized in an interview with Franz Erhard Walther: Books are so important, partly because they travel to the most unlikely places. Much farther than exhibitions. I am also interested in the book as a medium because artists give so much time, passion and energy to them. They are just as important as very big installations.

Marcus Neufanger was born in 1964 and lives in Schwäbisch Hall. His works are represented, among other places, within well-known collections such as ZKM, BW Bank Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Würth Künzelsau, Kienzle Berlin and private German collections.

For the exhibition a German/English catalogue is being published by Stefan Schülke Fine Books, with an additional Collectors‘ Edition of 25 copies.