Muntean and Rosenblum

Background

Adi Rosenblum and Markus Muntean met each other as students at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria. In 1992 they sublimated their subjective singularity into a double act, into a third person: Mutean/Rosenblum. In 1995 they founded Bricks & Kicks (1995 to 1998), one of the first Artist-Run galleries in Vienna. They were professors for Contextual Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from 1999 to 2005 and received the nationally prestigious City of Vienna Prize for Visual Arts in 2001.

The artist duo has shown work internationally; including solo exhibitions in renowned institutions such as De Appel Centre for Contemporary Art, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2002); Tate Britain, London (2004); the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC), León, Spain (2006); Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, Germany (2007); and Essl Museum – Contemporary Art, Klosterneuburg, Austria (2008). They participated in significant international group exhibitions such as “Fantasies and Curiosities” at the Miami Art Museum (2000); “Melodrama” at MARCO in Vigo (2003); “Rewind/Fast Forward,” Neue Galerie, Graz, Austria (2009); “The Triumph of Painting” and “New Blood,” both at Saatchi Gallery, London (2006 and 2005), and the 26th São Paulo Biennial (2004). In Berlin they gained wider recognition through their installation “Where else,” shown at the 2nd Berlin Biennial (2001), followed by their solo exhibitions at Arndt & Partner (2005 and 2008).

Work

In the compositions of their drawings, the artist couple Markus Muntean and Adi Rosenblum use methods of sampling and resampling of subjects from art history and present-day popular culture. The starting point is an intensive confrontation with the pathos formulas of art history and the questioning of how emotions that find expression as a result are articulated and interpreted in different eras. Motifs that we know from Passion cycles are applied to the psychological dispositions of con temporary existence, sometimes as the expression of an apathy that appeals to the empathy of the beholder. Historically overwhelming pictorial subjects are transferred into the present day, while at the same time triggering a discussion of the media conditions in which pictures are produced today. As a result of the use of language and lettering, a further plane penetrates into the drawings of Muntean/Rosenblum and gives insights into the complexity of the challenges which a subtle medium such as drawing has to face up to today. In the process. Muntean/Rosenblum also take an interest in the aspect of the nomadic narrative. The text collages form, in their relationship with the scenic compositions, aphorisms which pointedly contradict phrases of popular culture, and, through their paradoxical link with figural representations, awaken a dual consciousness.

Works in Public Collections