Marwan - Der Unverdeckte, 1969 Etched Print 1/6
Introduction:
The renowned work of Syrian-born artist Marwan Kassab Bachi has acquired international recognition from a number of reputable British art institutions such as the British Museum, Tate Modern and Christie’s, among others, as well as academic recognition with a permanent professorship at Hochschule der Künste in Berlin.
We can identify a sense of the grotesque in Der Unverdeckte, as the artist peels back figurative layers of artifice and human convention to reveal the raw and fleshly underneath. Without MARWAN’s signature pop of colour, the silent revelation of emotion in these works is even more poignant. Of his own work, Marwan says it is ‘quite confrontational. People don’t always like it, as they often want something more “sweet”’.
Description:
This work is one of the six in a series of prints achieved by Marwan with a French printing press in 1969. Faced with this figure, one gets the sense that the fourth wall is slowly being thinned by Marwan’s figure looking back at the viewer in the audience. It is not surprising then that the artist chooses to define his own work as confrontational. Between raw ink etchings, one can sense a real, almost living gaze peering intrusively through the image. A protean subversion occurs here as the artist challenges the audience’s voyeurism and asks the question: who is really performing the act of looking?