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until 03.08. | #4310ARTatBerlin | Galerie Max Hetzler (Goethestraße ) shows from 7. June 2024 the exhibition You think that you know but you know that you don’t by the artist Eddie Martinez.
Galerie Max Hetzler is pleased to present You think that you know but you know that you don’t, a solo exhibition of new works by Eddie Martinez at Goethestraße 2/3, in Berlin. This is the artist’s inaugural exhibition with the gallery.
Eddie Martinez’s artistic practice is characterised by his personal iconography, featuring signature elements such as bug-eyed humans in eclectic headgear, blockheads and the recurring butterfly motif of the ‘Buflies’. Brimming with cross-references to his everyday visual experiences, art history, and his own earlier work, his paintings show an energetic use of colour and bold contours, executed in various combinations of oil, enamel, spray paint, collage and studio detritus.
Martinez is best known for his large-scale wall works incorporating figuration and abstraction, painting and drawing, which foreground his signature muscular brushwork. In his paintings, Martinez seeks to translate the speed and immediacy of drawing – his original primary medium – into complex compositions on large-scale canvases. His use of different media owes much to his desire to emulate the creative velocity of pen and paper on a large format.
Continuing on from the body of work which is currently on view as part of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, the present exhibition includes paintings from several of the artist’s major ongoing series. Moon Cake and Arles Yellow belong to the ‘Flowerpots’, a series initiated in 2005 from memories of various plants native to Florida and California, where Martinez grew up.
Seoul Sunrise and Long Distance, are works from ‘Whiteout’, the title of which alludes to both the white liquid used to correct mistakes while writing, as well as the appearance of a dramatic snowstorm. In this series, ongoing since 2015, Martinez covers his colourful paintings with white paint in a process of erasure that engages with the canon of art history. The ‘Whiteouts’ stand out as exercises in looking, revealing Martinez’s fascination with appearing and disappearing forms.
Other paintings stand as individual works, which often draw on references from several of the artist’s series. They incorporate biomorphic shapes, appearing crowded with objects that are a cross between objects and places. Spargel Season and Emartllc No.6 are examples of Martinez’s fascination with wordplay, double meanings and free association, with the titles playing respectively on the Germans’ fondness for asparagus in springtime, and on his own studio headed notepaper, which reads ‘Emart LLC’. Drawing on notepaper is a practice which Martinez has long employed, and which was also the origin of his earlier ‘Love Letter’ works, here imbuing his painted canvas with a sense of impulsive spontaneity.
One earlier ‘Bufly’ work from 2022, titled BF No. 18, is included in the exhibition. Based on the love of butterflies which Martinez’s son expressed in his early childhood – as well as his mispronunciation of the winged creatures as ‘buflies’ – this work encapsulates the joy and brightness that pervades the artist’s practice.
The energy and vitality which characterizes Martinez’s work manifests itself variously in playfulness and slightly unsettling compositions. Defined by his intense interest in the world around us with its many visual influences and stimuli, Martinez’s method of working combines classical forms of painting like still life, portrait, and landscape with the speed in drawing, which he approaches in a form of stream-of-consciousness, to develop his unique artistic style.
Eddie Martinez (*1977, Groton, Connecticut) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Martinez’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions including Space K, Seoul (2024); Yuz Museum, Shanghai; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (both 2019); The Bronx Museum, New York (2018); The Drawing Center, New York; and Davis Museum at Wellesley College (2017). The artist is representing the Republic of San Marino with a solo exhibition entitled Nomader as part of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (2024).
Martinez’s works are in the collections of Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanas City; La Colección, Mexico City; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo, Madrid; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; the High Museum Atlanta; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; The Bronx Museum of the Arts; The Marciano Collection, Los Angeles; The Morgan Library & Museum, New York; and The Long Museum, Shanghai, among others.
Location: Goethestraße 2/3, 10623 in Berlin
Vernissage: Friday, 7. June 2024, 6 – 8 pm
Exhibition period: Friday, 7. June until Saturday, 3. August 2024
Title image caption: Eddie Martinez, Long Distance, 2024, © Eddie Martinez, Foto: JSP Art Photography
Exhibition Eddie Martinez – Galerie Max Hetzler | Contemporary Art – Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin – Exhibitions Berlin Galleries – ART at Berlin
