Tierkreiszeichen
The series of Tierkreiszeichen (signs of the zodiac) extends the Potsdamer Strasse series from 2012-2017. Some motifs such as Capricorn, Aries and Taurus were already developed in Potsdamer Strasse. They represent micro-sections of the facades, which found their way into the Potsdamer Straße series. In this series Matthias Mansen observed the …
Esslingen
To mark the anniversary of the district and Kreissparkasse Esslingen, Matthias Mansen explored the region to create a comprehensive woodcut cycle for the Kreissparkasse. He traveled to various regions of the Esslingen district and selected 15 significant motifs - some familiar, others unfamiliar - which he transformed into impressive woodcuts.
Triest oder die Götter
This was a work in progress, starting in 2017. Inspired by a summer trip to Trieste, observing the bathers next to a stretch of road connecting the city to the castle of Miramare, I felt that the bathers were taking up postures reminiscent of antiquity. I was struck by their body language and an unconscious association with the Golden Age.
Weibliche Gesten
This series "Female Gestures" was inspired by by immediate observation of communicative gestures. The printing blocks were carved on both sides to suggest plasticity in the printing process.
Potsdamer Straße, Feston
"Mansen combined various motifs from Potsdamer Straße 2012 and 2013 into a series: various views, facades, architectural details that on the basis of individual structures and grids are condensed into a very personal view. As Mansen frequently does, he printed the plates by alternating positives and negatives, i.e., the desired final picture …
Potsdamer Straße
“Things have to become so familiar to me that they become insignificant. It is only then that I can work with them.” This also applies to the view from his studio, an old factory façade. Countless circular grooves let an image emerge from the wooden surface. Or as Mansen puts it, “I don’t cut lines, I cut light.”"
(Henni Kristin …
Tiergarten, Details
"Winter is composed of 17 strictly vertically arranged blocks, broad as floorboards. (...) Just as in the composition of a piece of music, all four seasons are based on the colour green as a basso continuo." (Eckhart Gillen, from: Matthias Mansen - Land und See, catalogue Mannheim/Hamburg/Chemnitz 2007)
Works from this series are in …
Berlin-Tiergarten
"Spring appears to the beholder in the form of a beech wood in bright green and yellow, which (...) signal the new life in nature like a clarion call." (Eckhart Gillen, from: Matthias Mansen - Land und See, catalogue Mannheim/Hamburg/Chemnitz 2007)
Works from this series are in the collections of the following institutions: …
Birken
Kupferstichkabinett, Hamburger Kunsthalle
"In the series 'Birken', 2005, (...) Mansen takes up the idea of continual cutting. (...) In 'Birken', the trees remain where they are, but the spectator is moving towards them. (...) Basically, Mansen is exploring the degree to which a combination of white line cutting and black line cutting can be combined to achieve new effets. The use of …
Segelreise
The experience of crossing the Atlantic in a yacht in 1997 initially led to a series of small woodcuts in the shape of an imaginary sketch book after the trip. It was an attempt to capture the ephemeral observations in the medium of the woodcut: spray, clouds, rain, water swirling, waves. Over a period of four years, larger and smaller works …
Badende
"Step by step, I got closer to the subject of the 'Badende'. In this parallel situation - the currently running exhibition, the observation of Munch's work, his solutions for the situation of the 'Badenden' and the bathers themselves, as I saw them every day, in this field of tension, the work was created." (from: Drucke vom Holz 1897-2004, …
Gehen
"Mansen does not use the medium of the woodcut as a reproductive tool. On the contrary: Prints like 'Gehen' de facto illustrate the path towards the picture as a unique progression of impressions." (Angelika Stepken in BERLIN, in; catalogue of the eponymous exhibition at Galleri F 15 , Moss, Norway, 1996)
Works from this series are …
Das Haus
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
"The primary needs of life are not played out against the secondary, but put on par. Art and life are understood as two elements of the same stream of life. The play with forms and things of this trivial, commonplace world thus abandons non-commitment and gains importance as an aesthetic phenomenon." (Ferdinand Ullrich, aus: Matthias Mansen, …
Esszimmer
„Esszimmer, 1991, is set in a dining room, and it is characterized by successive overprinting with combined blocks. Once again, this set of three prints engages the viewer's imagination by inviting a narrative interpretation. In particular, the fact that in each print the dining room elements are printed in different colors and the figures …
Studio
"Mansen depicts the artist creating an image of his double, the viewer, observed by the third figure which embodies both simultaneously as three-dimensional presence and two-dimensional abstraction." (Dorothea Dietrich, in Matthias Mansen Editionen, Folkwang Museum Essen 2001.)
Works from this series are in the collections of the …
Küche
„Küche, in five states, was far easier to see, beginning with distinctly colored objetcs–a pot, pan, bowl, loaf of bread, knife, and spoon–placed in a kitchen printed light yellow. With each state, a new figure, printed in black but cut in a very different pattern, enters to help with the meal.“ (Jacqueline Brody in: Art on Paper, Vol. 3, No. …
Badezimmer
"'Badezimmer, Daily Duties' offers an apparently complete inventory of the typical activities that take place in that part of the house (washing, shaving, urinating, etc.). These kinds of categorized observations insist on clearly defined boundaries, and in their evocations of order and control proclaim the belief that inventories can …
Gespräch
Musée d'arts d'histoires, Genève
„..., Gespräch, zu viert (1989), in which four figures are sketched in using dots, scratches, leaf shapes. As these marks become more elaborate and emphatic, so the four conversationalists become more distinct and, it seems, the conversation more animated. Arms begin to wave about; even the figure sat slightly apart in the first panel, hands …
Begegnung
Musée d'arts d'histoires, Genève
„Begegnung, 1989, a single work on four sheets, depicts two people in an undefined space. We successively view a head in the foreground and a figure in the distance, two figures approaching each other, the figures shaking hands, and the figures parting. In each print the center block is printed with new blocks added and overprinted for each …
Paris
The series ' Ile St Louis/Ile de la Cité ' was created in Paris and comprises circa 80 works, successively exploring city space, beginning with the Cité des Arts studio in the Marais.
Works from this series are in the collections of the following museums:
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Sammlung Rolf Horn, …
Mann, aufstehend von einem Stuhl
Museum of Modern Art, New York
"I find myself responding more to visual experiences of everyday life. In London, when I was working on the first prints of movements, I saw a dancer whose name was Gaby Agis, and I was very taken by her way of dancing, or what I saw in it. I saw her define everyday movement - a gesture of the hand, trying to get up from the floor, dance, …
Studio, Kopf und Füße
"While full of graphic activity, a haunting absence pervades 'Studio-Head and Feet' The strongly vertical composition is established around the outlines of a full figure, seen frontally and appearing nearly actual size. Its featureless presence questions the viewer and invokes the imagination." (Charles M. Ritchie, aus: Art for the Nation. …
Frau im Männerwald
"In 'Frau im Männerwald' (Woman in the men's forest), 1987, boards are formed and transformed through recutting from trees into people and then back into trees. As each mobile part can be printed in different colours, turned upside-down, or printed in reverse, the possible permutations are staggering." (Dorothea Dietrich, in: Matthias Mansen. …
Essen
"In the first Essen prints one is initially disconcerted by the ever-changing perspective in which the objects are presented. (...) Mansen succeeded in evoking a whole host of forms by using the same plate over and over again with new colourings and by layered printing." (Annie Bardon, Matthias Mansen's Inventories, in: Matthias Mansen, …
Stehender
"In the 'Stehende' [sic] (Standing Figures) (1985), a cutout figure of a person is the result of a power of imagination bordering on hallucination. The wide figure (...) conjures the vision of a rudimentary human in a dark landscape out of Genesis" (Annie Bardon, in: The Print Collector's Newsletter, Vol. XVII, No. 5, November-December 1986) …
Köpfe
"The black and white heads are not the actual subject of these woodcuts but only the grounds for a violent examination of the brittle and yet hard wooden material. (...) He is more concerned with exploration than presentation." (Andreas Franzke, in: Matthias Mansen. Holzschnitte, Reutlingen 1988.)
Works from this series are in the …
Zimmer
One of the artist's first woodcuts, made in Karlsruhe while at the academy.
"I reacted against that and took up a medium that didn't allow everything, that had a strong, recalcitrant character of its own, where one has to create well-defined structures and strokes, especially when one tries to depict simple everyday subjects, as I …