Melancholia I

Marc Bauer, 2nd Prize – 2011 Call for contemporary creation

Both in their themes as in their aesthetics, Marc Bauer’s drawing are very inspired by the iconography of the Italian and German Renaissance, but also by the Baroque. For Melancholia I, the artist redraws the famous Mélancolie realized by the painter and engraver Albrecht Dürer in 1514, nicknamed in Germany “Bild der Bilder”, “the image of all images”. Dimensions: 3,60 m high x 3 m large.

Melancholia is within the scope of a research led by Marc Bauer since several years, articulated around the idea of deconstructing the drawing as a unique piece. Playing on the scales and the materials, the artist is in research of transposing his drawings in different materials (digital printing, photopolymer, tapestry etc.), the original drawing then finding itself modified to submit to the imperatives of the used technique. In that sense, the transposition into tapestry of Dürer’s Mélancolie redrawn by Marc Bauer aims to enrich the starting drawing and give back a certain sculpture-like aspect as well. For the artist, the tapestry should not only be considered as a media for the image, it should also exist in its own reality.

The tapestry consists in a very interesting medium for the transposition of Marc Bauer’s drawings, which are echoing one of his essential qualities: the narrative. As a starting point, the artist often takes personal memories, archive photographs or family photo albums, as many individual stories which he tries and replace in a larger historical context: “I see my drawings as a sort of archeology, which attempts, sometimes with humor, sometimes with despair, to bring back emotions and events”, he explains.

The tapestry is woven in black and white, with only a few hints of vivid colors. To realize it, a very important work of reflection with the weaver is needed to summarize the effect of destructuring, of dilating wanted by the artist. Thus, the weaver must play with the material in a very innovative way and keeping the classical weaving techniques in the same time, for the flesh, for instance. The translation of the “worn out” idea, altering in a new tapestry in order to bring him, following in Marc Bauer’s words, “a second emotional layer” is a technical challenge for the weaver.

Woven by Patrick Guillot’s workshop in Aubusson, the tapestry has fallen down the loom on the 22nd, November 2013.

Marc Bauer was born in Switzerland in 1975. He lives and works in Berlin. Exhibition auditor for the 30 years of the FRAC Auvergne (Exhibition la Révolte et l’Ennui, 2013), he has also been held back for the “off” of Art Basel 2013 (auditor: Florence Derieux), where he has presented, in the “Parcours” (Journey), the film “The Architect” in collaboration with the rock band Kafka (co-produced by the FRAC Auvergne). He has been exposed in 2013 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris within the scope of the exhibition presenting the works of Guerlain’s donation and participated in the collective exhibition 101 Sacré at the Migros Museum in Zürich.