Martin Bigum
Structure Beneath Skin
Wohnmaschine is pleased to announce the exhibition ‚Structure Beneath Skin’, the first soloshow in Germany by the Danish artist Martin Bigum.
The show presents large-scale paintings, wall-papers by the artist, drawings, photographs and an outside installation. The show invites to a poetic journey to grotesque and mythological vision.
Bigum is searching constantly for new inspiration throughout his environment, and sometimes the inspiration itself is the content of an artwork. Especially his photographs should be seen as evidences of moving through a fascinating world, leaving testimonies, catching the poetry of moments. ,What I can not write I must paint, and what I can not paint I must write’, as the artist says. The same can be said about what can not be photographed, well, it can be painted, and what can not be painted must be photographed.
Martin Bigum is primarily known for his comic-style paintings but also is active in poetry and writing. From the age of 15 – 22 Martin Bigum was a cartoon-artist for the Danish version of the American satirical MAD magazine. Quitting this job to pursue his own art the artist for many years did not want to be linked to neither cartoons nor MAD, but in his 42nd year of living, sees that a circle has been drawn.
Martin Bigum is born 1966 in Copenhagen, where he lives and works. Since his debut in 1990 Martin Bigum has been broadly shown in Scandinavian institutions and is collected by various Scandinavian museums, among these ARoS, Arken-Museum of Modern Art, Statens Museum for Kunst, Malmö Konstmuseum, Reykjavik Art Museum.
A 72 – pages catalogue in full color will be available from the end of January 2009, featuring all the works in the exhibition as well as poems, drawings and sketches.
The exhibition has been made possible through Peter Amby Contemporary Art Agency