Work
Markus Linnenbrink / GIVEMEABEAUTIFULAUDIENCE / 2019 / epoxy resin on wood / 36 x 48 inches
Untitled Art Fair 2020
MARKUS LINNENBRINK / CONTACTMAGICALBOY / 2019 / epoxy resin on wood / 48 x 48 inches (123.84 cm x 123.84 cm)
RAMEKON O’ARWISTERS / Cheesecake #14 / fabric, ceramics from CSULB ceramic program, beads, pins / 29 x 20 mx 18 inches
Markus Linnenbrink / CONTACTMAGIC / 2019 / epoxy resin on wood / 48 x 48 inches
Markus Linnenbrink / QUESTIONMARKSLINGERANDOBJECTSFALLDOWN / 2019 / epoxy resin on wood / 24 x 96 inches
DEMETRI BROXTON / Worth the Weight / 2019-20 / Everlast gloves, cowrie shells, 24K gold Japanese delica beads, Czech seed beads, redwood, frankincense, cotton & nylon thread, brass nails, mirrors, stainless steel chain and hardware
Inspired by the opening track of Jidenna’s 85 to Africa and Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother, Worth the Weight brings together several key ideas central to Broxton’s body of work. Cowrie shells were one of the key forms of currency used to purchase enslaved Africans during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. According to Hartman’s research, a strong male could be purchased for approximately 1 pound of cowrie shells for every 13 pound of the man’s body weight. Worth the Weight brings together the history of boxing which has been heavily tied into concepts of race and racial superiority ever since Jack Johnson became the first Black heavyweight champion of the world in 1908. The boxing gloves are embellished with cowrie shells and cascade down to a larger pile of 17 pounds of cowrie shells — corresponding to the purchase amount for the average weight of modern heavyweight boxers.
Markus Linnenbrink / QUESTIONMARKSLINGERANDOBJECTSFALLDOWN / 2019 / epoxy resin on wood / 24 x 96 inches
Untitled Art Fair 2020
Markus Linnenbrink / QUESTIONMARKSLINGERANDOBJECTSFALLDOWN / 2019 / epoxy resin on wood / 24 x 96 inches
RAMEKON O’ARWISTERS / Cheesecake #13 / fabric, ceramics from CSULB ceramic program, beads, pins / 31 x 20 x 20 inches
Markus Linnenbrink / INCOMPLETEKISSES / 2019 / epoxy resin on wood panel / 24 x 60 inches
Markus Linnenbrink / NEWWORLDMUDDYWATER / 2019 / Epoxy resin on wood / 36 X 36 inches (92.88 cm x 92.88 cm) / ML 310
Markus Linnenbrink / NEWWORLDMUDDYWATER / 2019 / Epoxy resin on wood / 36 X 36 inches (92.88 cm x 92.88 cm) / ML 310
Markus Linnenbrink / ANDSTILLWEDOPRETENDTHATYOUWILLBETHEREINTHEEND / 2019 / epoxy resin on wood / 48 x 48 inches
Markus Linnenbrink / DUATMESTNICHT / 2019 / Epoxy resin on wood / 36 x 36 inches (92.88 cm x 92.88 cm) / ML 305
Left: Markus Linnenbrink /LIGHTCONTAINERSOUNDS / 2019 / Epoxy resin on wood / 24 x 60 inches (61.92 cm x 154.8 cm) / ML 307
Markus Linnenbrink / DUATMESTNICHT / 2019 / Epoxy resin on wood / 36 x 36 inches (92.88 cm x 92.88 cm) / ML 305
Markus Linnenbrink /LIGHTCONTAINERSOUNDS/ 2019 / Epoxy resin on wood / 24 x 60 inches (61.92 cm x 154.8 cm) / ML 307
Markus Linnenbrink / IWALKIWANTIWAS / 2018 / epoxy resin on wood / 24 x 24 inches
Markus Linnenbrink / HELLOIAMYOURNEWTREE / 2019 / Epoxy resin with objects / 24 x 24 x 24 inches / ML 301
Markus Linnenbrink / HENRYROUSSEAUSDREAM / 2018 / Epoxy resin on wood / 60 x 60 inches (154.8 cm x 154.8 cm) / ML 312
Markus Linnenbrink / HELLOIAMYOURNEWTREE / 2019 / Epoxy resin with objects / 24 x 24 x 24 inches / ML 301
Markus Linnenbrink / DUATMESTNICHT / 2019 / Epoxy resin on wood / 36 x 36 inches (92.88 cm x 92.88 cm) / ML 305
Markus Linnenbrink / INVISIBLEACCIDENTS / 2018 / epoxy resin on wood / 24 x 24 inches
Markus Linnenbrink / HELLOIAMYOURNEWTREE / 2019 / Epoxy resin with objects / 24 x 24 x 24 inches / ML 301
Left: Markus Linnenbrink / (WHEN)ROADSBECOMERIVERS / 2019 / Epoxy resin on wood / 72 X 72 inches (185.76 cm x 185.76 cm) / ML 311
Markus Linnenbrink /DREAMGIRLSEVENT/ 2019 / Epoxy resin on wood / 24 x 60 inches (61.92 cm x 154.8 cm)
Markus Linnenbrink / ZEIGEFINGERZAUBERWORT / 2017/ epoxy resin / 14 x 14 inches
Markus Linnenbrink / KEEPYOURMOUTHSHUT / 2012 / epoxy resin on panel / 12 x 10 inches
Videos
BIO
MARKUS LINNENBRINK, b. 1954 in Germany
At once inventive and masterful, Markus Linnenbrink’s paintings are described as both performative and extreme. Linnenbrink pours and pools resin with cumulative layers of opaque and translucent pigments, building the dramatic physicality of his objects. Using a medium with short-lived malleability, his early epoxy paintings relied on the interplay between liquidity and gravitational pull; while later surface derivations were devised with mechanical assistance, forming concentric depressions, then incised channels. Linnenbrink’s creative vocabulary was described by David Pagel, art critic for the Los Angeles Times, in an essay, Gestural Abstraction in the Information Age: “Linnenbrink paints himself out of the picture. His paintings fly in the face of the idea that art is all about self-expression… Hands-off detachment, unsentimental experimentation, and quasi-scientific exploration play potent roles in his complex compositions, whose surfaces take painting to extremes, both sculpturally and coloristically.”
For three decades Linnenbrink’s inventive methodology has driven with intuitive intentionality – not with an eye to distract, but with the alchemist’s quest for transformation. There’s no question that viewing a Linnenbrink painting is the stuff of ponderous pleasure, but it also transports beyond the constraints of what ‘is’ to what ‘isn’t’. Pagel comments, “After a few generations of art made by artists who seem to believe that the pursuit of knowledge and that of pleasure follow paths that go in opposite directions, it’s refreshing to come across Linnenbrink’s works, which, in their multi-directional ambidexterity, both insist and demonstrate that physical pleasure and intellectual stimulation work in concert, enhancing and amplifying each other’s best features while fueling the fires of a viewer’s experiences.”
Markus Linnenbrink garnered attention in the U.S. and Europe with wall paintings at the UCLA Hammer Museum, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the Kunstmuseum in Bonn, and Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld. Recent significant commissions are 75 Rockefeller Center, New York with a 7-by-90-foot painting installed in their public concourse lobby; and Morrison & Foerster, New York installation of eight, 9-by-42 foot wall paintings, one on each of their eight floors; and Jorge M. Pérez SLS Brickell 40,000 sq. ft. wall painting, Miami, Florida. Over 50 works are in public collections, which include the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; UCLA Hammer Museum; The Hague Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Netherlands; Neue Galerie, Kassel; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Museum Katharinenhof, Kranenburg; Kunsthalle Recklinghausen; Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel; Clemens Sels Museum, Neuss; and 75 Rockefeller Center, NY.