ASTERISK: 2010

26.12.10

German Art Gallery

The German Contribution to the Visual Arts: Select Artwork
by Mariano Akerman

Medieval sculpture. Last Judgement Tympanum: The Damned, Bamberg cathedral, 13th century

Gothic sculpture. Master Heinrich of Constance, The Visitation, c. 1310-20. Polychrome walnut, with gilding and rock crystal cabechons. German sculpture, from Katharienenthal Abbey, Switzerland. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Stephen Lochner, The Madonna in the Rose Bower (Maria am Rosenhag), 1448. Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

Medieval print. Hartmann Schedel, The Monstrous Races: "Blemmyae," from Liber chronicarum (Die Schedelsche Weltchronik, Das Buch der Croniken und Geschichten von Hartmann Schedel), woodcut, 1493

Renaissance painting. Albrecht Dürer, Self-Portrait, 1498

Renaissance print. Moses leads the Children of Israel through the Red Sea, from The Luther Bible, Germany, c. 1530

Christoph Jamnitzer, Neuw Grotteßken Buch (New Book of Grotesques), Nuremberg 1610

Friedrich Unteutsch, Gristly Motif (Knorpelwerk), engraving, 1650

Johann Heinrich Keller, Cartilaginous Grotesque (Knorpelgroteske), engraving, 1680

Rococo engraving. Johann Georg Hertel (after Jeremias Wachsmuth), Winter, Rococo Music, Fancy Dress Ball, etching, 1750-60

Romanticism. Runge, Self-Portrait, oil, 1810

Caspar David Friedrich, The Wreck of Hope, oil, 1823-4. Hamburger Kunsthalle

Realism. Karl Edouard Biermann, Borsig Engineering Work in Berlin (Borsig's Maschinenbau-Anstalt zu Berlin), oil, 1847. Stadtmuseum Berlin

Impressionism. Max Liebermann, Country Tavern at Brannenburg, oil, 1893. Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Jugendstil (Art Nouveau). Ephraim Lilien, "The Covenant of Abraham," Die Bücher der Bible, 1908

Expressionism 1. Die Brücke (The Bridge). Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Girl from Kowno (Madchen aus Kowno), woodcut, 1918. Brücke Museum, Berlin

Expressionism 2. Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). Franz Mark, The White Bull (detail from Cattle), oil, 1913

Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). George Grosz, Café Megalomania, pen and ink, 1915. Galerie St. Etienne, New York

Dada. John Heartfield, Dada Photomontage, 1917

Social Realism. Käthe Kollwitz, The Mothers, woodcut, 1921

Surreal sculpture. Meret Oppenheim, Object (Breakfast in Fur), 1936. Museum of Modern Art, New York

Surreal collage. Max Ernst, She looked slightly like a horse, 1937

Bauhaus. Mies van der Rohe, Model for a Glass Skycreaper (Maquette Glazen Wolkenkrabber), 1922

Totalitarian propaganda. Modern art presented as DEGENERATE "ART" (Entartete "Kunst"). Catalog of Munich 1937 exhibition features on its cover a sculpture by German expressionist artist Otto Freundlich, The New Man (Der neue Mensch), 1912

Karl Schwesig, "Anyone could participate in the beatings," from the Drumstick Cellar (Schlegelkeller−Zyklus), 1935-37. A pen and ink drawing from his (now mostly lost) 48-images series. Düsseldorf Stadtmuseum

John Heartfield, And Yet It Moves, photomontage, 1943

Andreas Paul Weber, March into the Grave, lithograph, 1932

Informalism. Abstract painting by Hans Hartung

Ernst Kahl, The Fighting Dog (Der Kampfhund), on the cover of In the refrigerator light still burns (Im Kühlschrank brennt noch Licht), record, 1996

Anselm Kiefer, Margarete (Dein goldenes Haar, Margarethe), mixed media, 1981

Above-featured artworks were explored by Mariano Akerman along the series of educational lectures and workshops Shape and Meaning, Islamabad and Rawalpindi, November-December 2010

1. Looking at Pictures and Learning from Art
Islamabad College for Girls, 23 November 2010
2. The Grotesque in German Art. Its Nature, Transformations and Importance in Aesthetics
Islamabad College for Girls, 8 December 2010
3. Modern Art
Post-Graduate College for Women, Rawalpindi, 9 December 2010
4. The Bible and the Visual Arts
Khatoon-e-Fatima School, Islamabad, 10 December 2010
5. Bible-inspired Symbolism in German Art
Khatoon-e-Fatima School, Islamabad, 14 December 2010

Shape and Meaning: The German Contribution to the Visual Arts - Five Educational Lectures by Mariano Akerman, German Embassy Islamabad, 3.1.2011, Education & Culture

More on famous German artists:
Albrecht Dürer
Anton Raphael Mengs
Caspar David Friedrich
Max Liebermann
Franz Marc
Max Ernst
Paul Klee
Kathe Kollwitz
Hans Hartung
Anselm Kiefer

25.12.10

German Art Lectures

Shape and Meaning: The German Contribution to the Visual Arts
Educational lectures and workshop program
Islamabad and Rawalpindi, November-December 2010

1. Looking at Pictures and Learning from Art
Islamabad College for Girls, 23 November 2010
400 students
Artworks by Albrech Dürer, Balthasar Küchler, Christoph Jamnitzer, Johann Esaias Nilson, Max Liebermann, Lesser Ury, Ludwig Meidner, Karl Schmidt-Rothluff, Franz Marc, and Max Ernst.

2. The Grotesque in German Art. Its Nature, Transformations and Importance
Islamabad College for Girls, 8 December 2010
380 students
Artworks by Conrad von Megenberg, Hartman Schedel, Albrech Dürer, Christoph Jamnitzer, Simon Cammermeir, Johann Heinrich Keller, Jeremias Waschmuth, Carl Strathmann, Max Ernst, Meret Oppenheim, Thomas Grunfeld, and Ernst Kahl.

3. Modern Art
Post-Graduate College for Women, Rawalpindi, 9 December 2010
180 students
Artworks by Philipp Otto Runge, Caspar David Friedrich, Karl Eduard Biermann, Max Liebermann, Lesser Ury, Max Laueger, Ephraim Lilien, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Ludwig Meidner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Beckmann, Franz Marc, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Kurt Schwitters, Meret Oppenheim, Max Ernst, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Karl Schwesig, John Heartfield [Helmut Herzfeld], Käthe Kollwitz, Hans Hartung, and Anselm Kiefer.

4. The Bible and the Visual Arts
Khatoon-e-Fatima School, Islamabad, 10 December 2010
152 students
Students were introduced to a meaningful relation between archaeological evidence and Gerrman imagery inspired by the Bible. All biblical themes were explored via German artworks, among which The Creation, Adam and Eve, The Tower of Babel, Noah's Ark, Abraham contemplating the Stars, Moses and the Children of Israel crossing the Red Sea, The God Prophet, The Annuciation to Mary, The Visitation, The Virgin Mary and Baby Emmanuel, The Three Kings, Mother and Child, The Rose Garden, Young Jesus teaching in the Temple, and Jerusalem as City of Light.

5. Bible-inspired Symbolism in German Art
Khatoon-e-Fatima School, Islamabad, 14 December 2010
160 students
Students were introduced to a meaningful relation between archaeological evidence and Gerrman imagery inspired by the Bible. All biblical themes were explored via German artworks, among which The Creation, The Tower of Babel, Noah's Ark, Abraham contemplating the Stars, Moses and the Children of Israel crossing the Red Sea, The God Prophet, The Annuciation to Mary, The Visitation, The Virgin Mary and Baby Emmanuel, The Three Kings, Mother and Child, The Rose Garden, Young Jesus teaching in the Temple, and Jerusalem as City of Light.

Shape and Meaning: The German Contribution to the Visual Arts - Five Educational Lectures by Mariano Akerman, German Embassy Islamabad, 3.1.2011, Education & Culture

23.12.10

Mariano Akerman • Art, 1987-2005

1 • Suite Argentina • Argentinean Suite
Watercolors, Buenos Aires, 1987-1990

Exh. Universidad de Belgrano, Buenos Aires, 1988; Bank of Boston Cultural Foundation, Buenos Aires, 1989; Centro Cultural San Martín, Buenos Aires, 1990; Negev Artists' Pavilion, Beersheba, 1991; Rubin Cultural Center, Arad, 1991; Galería Saint Margaret, Buenos Aires, 1992-95; Alliance Total Gallery (Alliance Française de Manille), Manila, November 2005; Royal Residence of Belgium, Islamabad, 2010

Mariano Akerman was born a painter. In a world of constant exploration, his spiritual curiosity produces true symbols of life. —Bernardo Graiver

If we search a formal structure, this is evident. There's also a strong subject matter; his work carries an interesting, vital message. Here, the simple does not exclude the profound. The theoretic basis of this artist can be found in his education as an architect, the rest are personal recollections that will permeate his artwork. —Monique Sasegur

Powerful will in the creation of form, his dream-inspired enigmas demand an active participation of the spectator. And this is worthwhile—it is beauty itself, unfolding in an exuberant flowering. —Renato Olivieri

He projects his inspiration in select images, giving to his work the mysterious charm of those things seldom seen by the human eye. —Zulema Vaini

The mobile layout of his painting recalls Miró, [... yet] the nature of the work is from the Americas, a fact confirmed by [the depiction of] dreamlike figures and settings. —Teresita Pociello

He is interested in the problem of the limit. In his works, he explores the relation continent-content. —Alicia Oliberos

In his work, there is a precise and delicate line; the fresh way in which he handles watercolor produces colorful results. / As he depicts forms and details, his enormous inner richness is expressed in terms of joy. In this way, his personages […] dream and grow up under skies specially created to convey the better world he desires. In a patient and silent distillation, he adopts a heroic attitude, innovating in the contemporary visual arts. —Bettina Sandrini

His works can be defined as a mixture of abstract and figurative techniques, complex and with a rich symbolism. —JN, The Buenos Aires Herald

2 • Here, There, Everywhere, small format works, 1991-2002

Small format works made in Buenos Aires, Jerusalem, London, Brussels, and Manila. Exh. The Rubin Cultural Center, Arad, 1991; The National Museum of the Philippines, Manila, 2005; Alliance Total Gallery (Alliance Française de Manille), Manila, 2005; Royal Residence of Belgium, Islamabad, 2010

He possesses excellent intellectual virtues and a remarkable aesthetic sensitivity. […] His self-critical sense leads him to a constant effort to achieve his goals. —Oscar Maisonave

With secure hand and controlled drawing, a prolific imagination finds expression in his work. His knowledge is intermingled with a profound introspection and an almost obsessive desire to transcend the formal in order to convey profound meanings. —Jorgelina Orfila

His pictorial work might be described; it could never be defined. The style is intricate, precise, richly symbolic and wholly personal. […] His strikingly colored and textured paintings suggest the fantastic, but on closer inspection their bizarre shapes and colors reveal a concern with real-world events and experiences. […]. His own development as a painter has been a matter of intensification, of refinement of technique rather than of dramatic stylistic change. —Susan Mahler

I am impressed with his sensitivity to historical artistic and cultural material. This reflects his intellectual training and knowledge of art history. This sensitivity is beyond the norm for members of the design professions, and reflects a more theoretical approach to art. [Another …] impressive trait […] is his ability to empathize with diverse cultural traditions and societies. —Chanan Mazal

3 • Les Constellations Intérieures • Inner Constellations
Watercolors and mixed media, Manila, 2004-2005

Exh. The National Museum of the Philippines, Manila, 2005; Alliance Total Gallery (Alliance Française de Manille), Manila, 2005, with Introductory text by Jean-Paul Girault; Residence of Belgium, Islamabad, 2010

A notable researcher. —Libertad Vigo

I really like the inner constellations. They are like paths, aren’t they? —Andrea Gobbi

Akerman’s work speaks for inner vision; it is almost an exploration to the painter’s soul. Some of his works recall the type of the textures one can perceive with the help of a microscope. —Martin Yaya

Only a person so creative and with so much depth and inner beauty can show his interior with so much clarity and purity. I am delighted to lose myself in the inner constellations, thinking I am a tiny atom in that wonderful universe called Akermariano. —Adriana Morabito

• Mariano Akerman at WOOLOO, 2005-11

• Akermania Digitalis

21.12.10

Mariano Akerman: The German Art Lectures

The German Contribution to the Visual Arts
Five educational lectures by Mariano Akerman

Dr. Thomas Ditt, German Embassy, Pakistan. Shape and Meaning is the title of a series of lectures given by the well-known art historian Mariano Akerman to 1,500 students in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

The German contribution to the visual arts is the theme explored in this educational cycle where each lecture is different from the previous one. One of the conferences is devoted to the evolution of German art throughout the ages, others present German imagery inspired by the Bible. There are also lectures on modern art and even those which introduce the audience to the persistence of the Grotesque in German art.

The lectures have the support of the German Embassy in Islamabad. They are free of charge and are given in English, being simultaneuously translated into the Urdu language.

German Art - Its Peculiarities and Transformations. A series of lectures by Mariano Akerman
The contribution of German artists and their colleagues working in Germany encompasses the development of the print as an artistic means in its own right (Albrecht Dürer), outstanding formulations concerning the Grotesque (aesthetical category), the subjective approach of Romanticism, fusing the visible with the spiritual (Caspar David Friedrich), incursions in Impressionism (Max Liebermann) and Jugendstil (Max Laeuger and Ephraim Moses Lilien), the conjunction of Primitivism and the Soul (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rotluff), the simplification of the image leading to abstraction in 20th century art (Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky), sharp criticism of the bourgeoisie and the aftermath of WWI (Otto Dix and Georg Grosz), the exploration of the absurd and the apparently irrational nature of dreams (Kurt Schwitters, Max Ernst, Meret Oppenheim), and a logical amalgamation of the arts and crafts to supply normative archetypes to the industry as developed in the Bauhaus (Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe).
Problematic is the effect of totalitarianism on German Art, while luminous are the contributions of a number of German independent artists during WWII (Kollwitz, Heartfield, Weber) and other post-war painters such as and Anselm Kiefer.

Along the conferences, Mariano Akerman explores these and several other aspects of modern art while considering the historical context of a select group of German masterpieces. As a whole, Akerman’s collection of images underlines how diverse and meaningful German Art is.

Mariano Akerman - Artist and Historian

Born in Buenos Aires, Akerman studied at the School of Architecture of Universidad de Belgrano (Argentina), completing his education with a prized graduation project on the limits and space in modern architecture (1987).
Abroad from 1991, he received a full British Council Grant and researched the visual imagery of Francis Bacon (1995) and the architectural projects of Louis I. Kahn (1997). A professional art historian (Suma cum Laude, 1999), he contributes regularly to Knol and the Encyclopédie Larousse since 2009.
In Asia, Akerman developed the educational series of lectures From Van Eyck to Magritte (2005), Arte Argentino (2006), In the Spirit of Linnaeus (2007), Raisons d’être—Art, Freedom and Modernity (2008-10), and German Art (2010; review by Ishrat Hyatt).
Specializing in visual communication, architect and art historian Mariano Akerman is an experienced educator. He gives lectures at renowned institutions such as Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Argentina, the National Museum of the Philippines and the National College of Arts in Lahore. Only in Pakistan, he has given more than twenty lectures ad honorem (Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi, 2008-10).
An artist himself, Akerman exhibits his paintings and collages since 1979 onwards. He has received more than twelve major international prizes.