Galleries in Paris

Masses of bodies, flesh, compressions, accumulations, contemplative and contemplated bodies – L’Oasi brings the modern tribe together in the gourmand, knowing and voyeuristic eye of Marlon Wobst: Games, pantie intimacy, hedonism, movements, mundane and absurd poses – you name it – everything goes, everything is shown… The title of the exhibition – L’Oasi - the eponymous name of an Italian beach where the artist often went when he was younger becomes a metaphor for existence. Ondaaaaa* cry out the bathers when a huge wave arrives and that’s it – they jump and dive! The bodies are displayed with a mix of narcissistic staging, imperfections and vulnerability – thus going against the spectacular imagery of our aestheticized culture with striking finesse. A stated carnivore, Marlon Wobst feeds on the human life that surrounds him. Very often, it is a detail that sets off an artwork – which first aim is to call out, trigger curiosity, question and subsequently, to take the spectator to another level where composition, colour and even the work’s matter offer their particular narration. For if Marlon Wobst is indeed an observer and a stage director, he’s equally an eager manipulator of matter.

Sincere and involved but also a mischievous poet, the artist takes us from heartbreaking, hilarious and goofy situations to an affected smile by bestowing his work with a good dose of humor, and at times a magical or mythological dimension, that questions the true nature of the situation presented.  

S O   N A K E D

Nudity for Marlon Wobst does not intend to simply address basic nudity or sex – even if there is indeed a lot of sex in his universe. It is about baring – through a form of nudity that erases all obstacles to see, to understand, to come close to a reality**. The naked body shows us in our fragility, pretentions, animality and our simple carnal reality as matter that breathes and exists with or next to other fleshes: Here, beings desire each other, entangle, make love, get bored, put on socks, play, swim, clean, look at each other, start all over again, if they are not trying to experiment yet another erotic variation on horseback…

A P P E A R A N C E   D I S A P P E A R A N C E

Despite the omnipresence of the human figure in Marlon Wobst’s work; his world is also defined by “comings and goings” between matter and presence. As much as a few strokes suffice to give existence to a being or even an inanimate object, their absorption or dissolution in the space of the matter often seems imminent. Thus, a sophisticated game of appearance and disappearance, which illustrates the capacity of matter to hold its own narration and to let the notion of creation, play out in front of us – or even suggest a fluctuating frontier between reality, dream and imagination. These considerations can be found in the compositions of the artist, who likes to define his pictorial field other than by the delimitations of the canvas: “By stopping his image” well before the edge of the frame or on the contrary, by going beyond it with a large quantity of paint on the edge, as well as composing with scenes apparently independent from one another on the same surface. Marlon Wobst’s earthenware sculptures offer the possibility to transpose and work on all these limitations and ambiguities in three-dimension.

E X H I L A R A T I O N   A N D   B E A U T Y   O F   A   C E R T A I N   U G L I N E S S

Colour possesses a kind of autonomy in the artist’s work as its power is striking: delicate luminous pastels, intensive yet fine tones, vibrant stains and heavy, muted hues of greens, beiges, greys and browns. Marlon Wobst embraces the spectrum in its entirety, while displaying a particular affection for pinks and copper-skin colors. This palette can be found in his use of oil paint, which he keeps matte and often pasty as well as in the glazes of his ceramics.

b a c k g r o u n d

The Starter show of Marlon Wobst (born in 1980 in Wiesbaden, Germany) his first exhibition in France at GALERIE MARIA LUND in 2015 was unanimously well received by the public and the media. Since then, he has shown at the prestigious Kunsthal Charlottenborg institution in Copenhagen in spring 2016 following the attribution of the “Solo Award Exhibitions 2015” by the Charlottenborg Fonden. Despite his young age, the artist has already had several exhibitions in Germany, Denmark, Brazil and more recently in Finland and in the United States. Marlon Wobst studied at the Akademie für Bildende Künste in Mainz and at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. He currently lives and works in Berlin.

*Onda: “wave” in Italian

** « It was « the magic, the perfect politics of nakedness”, Graham Swift: Mothering Sunday, ScribnerUK, 2016