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until 14.11. | #5166ARTatBerlin | Taubert Contemporary shows from Thursday, 10. September 2026 the exhibition “DIFFERENTLEVELSOFBEING” by the artist Markus Linnenbrink.
These “Photo Drips” are based on photographs taken by Linnenbrink in 2023 at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin. They depict stuffed animals and museum exhibits whose silent presence oscillates between scientific documentation and aesthetic presentation. These include a big cat, a zebra, a bird and shelves full of test tubes – motifs that illustrate the diversity of natural history collections whilst also revealing various forms of preservation, organisation and classification. The photographs are mounted onto the support surfaces and then coated with a transparent layer of epoxy resin; Linnenbrink subsequently applies his characteristic epoxy stripes. In this process, painting and photography merge into a pictorial surface in which documentation, materiality and colour flow into one another.
The flowing layers of paint do not conceal the subject, but rather alter the way it is perceived. They create a tension between visibility and concealment, between stillness and movement. The photographic image remains present, yet is placed in a new spatial and temporal context by the paint. The animals no longer appear solely as natural history specimens, but as image carriers whose meaning is constantly transformed by the process of painterly overlay.
Markus Linnenbrink, DIFFERENTLEVELSOFBEING, installation view: Martin Müller, Berlin. Courtesy of the Gallery.
The work ‘Photo Drip STEPLIGHTLYTHROUGHDREAMSUNTITLED’ (2026) holds a special place, as it is based on an image from the artist’s personal archive: the greatly enlarged photographic motif originates from an old slide from the 1970s, taken from the estate of Linnenbrink’s father. Past and present, personal memory and historical change intersect. Through the combination of the original photographic material with Linnenbrink’s painterly treatment, time itself becomes a visible layer of the image. Photography and painting intertwine in a direct manner; between representational legibility and abstraction, an pictorial space emerges in which memory is not preserved but continuously reinterpreted.
The exhibition centres on questions of perception, memory and transformation. What reality does a photograph reveal? How does colour alter our view of an image? And what role does the museum play as a place where nature is preserved and classified, whilst at the same time being transformed into cultural narratives? Linnenbrink does not develop this into a documentary exploration, but rather opens up a poetic visual space in which material, colour and motif interact on an equal footing.
With “DIFFERENTLEVELSOFBEING”, Markus Linnenbrink presents a body of work that builds consistently on his previous artistic practice. Situated at the intersection of painting, photography and object art, these works are less depictions of reality than spaces for the visual experience.
Opening: Thursday, 10. September 2026, 6 – 9 pm.
Exhibition dates: Thursday, 10. September 2026 – Monday, 14. September 2026
Special opening hours for Berlin Art Week:
Thursday, 10. September, 12 – 9 pm.
Friday, 11. September, 12 – 6 pm.
Saturday, 12. September, 11 am. – 7 pm.
Sunday, 13. September, 12 – 18 pm.
To the gallery
Title image caption: Markus Linnenbrink, DIFFERENTLEVELSOFBEING, installation view: Martin Müller, Berlin. Courtesy of the Gallery.
Exhibition Markus Linnenbrink – Taubert Contemporary | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
