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Lot Essay
A pioneer of artistic expression and Arab Modernism, Syrian born Marwan, uses his works to transport the viewer into a multi-dimensional realm that captures so deeply the inner psyche. Having spent the last six decades in Germany where he currently resides, Marwan's solid inspiration and appreciation for German Post-War art is not a coincidence. Studying with fellow artist Georg Baselitz under the mentorship of artist Hans Trier, a leader in the Tachisme movement, Marwan's paintings magnificently succeed in deeply reflecting his own identity as a wanderer between the two worlds - as a German pioneer of European Modernism with a close connection to the cultural legacy and spiritual tradition of the Arab world.
In his quest to passionately display and explain his world through his paintings, Marwan restricts himself to few simple and essential themes, most prevalently the head, which has in the coming years and decades become Marwan's almost sole theme. He conceives of the head as a metaphor of his world - as a landscape of the soul and as the great orb of the universe. By reiterating this image over and over, in hundreds of variations, it becomes clear that the capacity for the life of these heads is astounding; they stand for the whole body and thus for the human being in its entirety.
These paintings are self-portraits in the sense that they are psychic profiles of the artist - there is physically little facial resemblance - although each of his paintings look similar when viewed separately. It is not until they are looked at in quick succession of each other that one realises they are in fact different. They are, in turn, the artist's 'inner faces' capturing his mental state at the time he chooses to transfer his emotions onto the canvas. This multiple personality is mirrored in the multi-dimensionality of his paintings, exemplified by the viewer's different experiences and interpretations of the reactions of his faces when viewed from one angle to the next - while simultaneously looking at this one painting, the viewer thus takes on this emotional journey through its shifts of distance and perspective.
Christie's is honoured to be offering this seminal work from the artist's oeuvre Kopf (Head), painted in 1985 that cements Marwan's departure from the Facial Landscape works that dominated the artist's oeuvre in the 1960s and integrates the development of a scattered brush stroke that was to fill the canvases of his Marionette series. Unlike his earlier works, Marwan has introduced a brighter set of tones to his palette with thick and heavy brush strokes which are transformed into a recital of colour and light; interwoven colours in twitching masses of ribbons, strokes and dots exemplify the sense motion in the painting, as light delicately bounces of the canvas.
In this flowing brushwork and tender colouration, an extraordinary emotional language emerges, at once nuanced, but expressive, pulsating in the ability for these fleshy tones to flow into each other into a consistency that can only reference his beloved landscape. In some ways this reminds the viewer distinctly of the Qassyun mountains towering over Damascus. In turn, these faces become in themselves landscapes of their own, landscapes of the soul and mind. The complexity behind this composition is exemplified by the artist's technique; he applies layer after layer with great patience and intensity - which acts metaphorically to highlight the multi-layered human psyche. Simultaneously portraying proximity and distance, as one moves closer to the image, it gradually blurs, morphing into a shimmering radiant field of colour that offers an exemplary insight into the inner workings of Marwan's mind.
Marwan has had more than 25 solo exhibitions throughout his artistic career in prestigious galleries and institutions around the world including Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Berlin/Beirut; Richard-Haizmann, Berlin; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; the Museum of Modern Art, Baghdad; and most recently at the Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah. He has been awarded numerous prizes and his works are featured in major public and private collections around the world, including The Tate Modern, London and The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.
In his quest to passionately display and explain his world through his paintings, Marwan restricts himself to few simple and essential themes, most prevalently the head, which has in the coming years and decades become Marwan's almost sole theme. He conceives of the head as a metaphor of his world - as a landscape of the soul and as the great orb of the universe. By reiterating this image over and over, in hundreds of variations, it becomes clear that the capacity for the life of these heads is astounding; they stand for the whole body and thus for the human being in its entirety.
These paintings are self-portraits in the sense that they are psychic profiles of the artist - there is physically little facial resemblance - although each of his paintings look similar when viewed separately. It is not until they are looked at in quick succession of each other that one realises they are in fact different. They are, in turn, the artist's 'inner faces' capturing his mental state at the time he chooses to transfer his emotions onto the canvas. This multiple personality is mirrored in the multi-dimensionality of his paintings, exemplified by the viewer's different experiences and interpretations of the reactions of his faces when viewed from one angle to the next - while simultaneously looking at this one painting, the viewer thus takes on this emotional journey through its shifts of distance and perspective.
Christie's is honoured to be offering this seminal work from the artist's oeuvre Kopf (Head), painted in 1985 that cements Marwan's departure from the Facial Landscape works that dominated the artist's oeuvre in the 1960s and integrates the development of a scattered brush stroke that was to fill the canvases of his Marionette series. Unlike his earlier works, Marwan has introduced a brighter set of tones to his palette with thick and heavy brush strokes which are transformed into a recital of colour and light; interwoven colours in twitching masses of ribbons, strokes and dots exemplify the sense motion in the painting, as light delicately bounces of the canvas.
In this flowing brushwork and tender colouration, an extraordinary emotional language emerges, at once nuanced, but expressive, pulsating in the ability for these fleshy tones to flow into each other into a consistency that can only reference his beloved landscape. In some ways this reminds the viewer distinctly of the Qassyun mountains towering over Damascus. In turn, these faces become in themselves landscapes of their own, landscapes of the soul and mind. The complexity behind this composition is exemplified by the artist's technique; he applies layer after layer with great patience and intensity - which acts metaphorically to highlight the multi-layered human psyche. Simultaneously portraying proximity and distance, as one moves closer to the image, it gradually blurs, morphing into a shimmering radiant field of colour that offers an exemplary insight into the inner workings of Marwan's mind.
Marwan has had more than 25 solo exhibitions throughout his artistic career in prestigious galleries and institutions around the world including Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Berlin/Beirut; Richard-Haizmann, Berlin; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; the Museum of Modern Art, Baghdad; and most recently at the Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah. He has been awarded numerous prizes and his works are featured in major public and private collections around the world, including The Tate Modern, London and The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.