Priska von Martin Exhibition Catalogue Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg and Gerhard-Marcks-Haus Bremen

by Herda, Isabel; List, Christine; Hartog, Arie; Johnson, Noura Persephone; Grathwohl-Scheffel, Christiane

• ISBN13: 9783864423192
• ISBN10: 3864423198
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2021-03-01
• Publisher: Snoeck Publishing Company

Summary

For Priska von Martin, the catalyst in life was the desire to capture humanity as form. She tried to delineate artistically what constitutes human existence, including isolation, dysfunctionality, pain, but also harmony, wholeness, and beauty. She captured the essence of human existence in animal figures as well as women's bodies and ­torsos. Her art was aimed at the corporeal, the visibly physical—injury, dislocation, displacement—as well as the spiritual, the invisible, the intangible—emotions, instincts, conditions. Who was Priska von Martin? What hopes did she place in bequeath­ing her estate to her native Freiburg, so far away from her place of work in Munich, on the vague chance of being viewed and understood independently? If she was focusing on this (deferred) outside view, why did she scarcely document her oeuvre? Which parts of her life story did she want to leave in the dark? How do we treat the information we have about this artist, who is described as a tactful person?

Author Biography

Isabel Herda has been curator at the Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg since 2001, where she is in charge of the Graphic Collection. With a doctorate in art history, Christine Litz has curated numerous exhibitions on modern and contemporary art and published many texts and catalogues. Arie Hartog has been director of the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus since 2009. Noura Persephone Johnson has been a trainee at the Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg since 2019. Christiane Grathwohl-Scheffel has worked in the art trade in Berlin (Villa Grisebach Auctions, Galerie Brusberg) and as a curator at the Berlinische Galerie Museum für Moderne und zeitgenössische Kunst (Berlinische Galerie Museum for Modern Art).