Maureen Paley is pleased to present the second solo exhibition in London of artists Muntean / Rosenblum.

Cerith Wyn Evans: So, we can look at the representations of young people in your work as ciphers for a certain kind of ideological presence which is subject to late-capitalism and fulfils notions of aspiration and promise. All these things that are about the state of becoming, but are somehow lost. I feel that this subjective thinness, this ambiguity as to whether it is even possible to make a space for the subject, is sufficed by a certain sense of melancholy or loss. This relates to a long tradition of Romanticism, which looks at the melancholic position as an idea that is politically and ideologically worth supporting through notions of doubt, misunderstanding and ambiguity. So, it aligns itself with a liberal historical trajectory, which is hoping in some sense to reclaim the subject proper. As well as a melancholic stasis there is a speed in the work, but there’s a gravity to the speed of the work. The lament-like structure in the work, is fascinating to me. …It also seems, that the concept of the mask is important and the visibility of the mask as a construct is crucial…

Adi Rosenblum: Yes, I think there is also something about the artificial and the natural. We are fascinated by, and investigate, how far you can go with the construction of the gesture of the figure. Because, we think the more artificial it gets the more moving it is, even though, in the normal sense it is the natural that is the thing that moves you. …We have developed a signature style created by two people; it’s exactly as we said before, about keeping the question open, about subjectivity. This two-fold authorship completely suits our concept. I think it’s similar to the concept of the mask. Through the mask we created the identity of the two of us, and it allows us to escape the problems of our identification as painters. Standing in the studio with a white canvas, through creating this identity, we can paint whatever we want, we can discuss it… It’s more suitable to my way of thinking, for me it’s an ongoing dialogue.

Markus Muntean: This double authorship has the same function as the white frame or margins, which puts the painting into brackets. These white frames or margins of course have connotations in terms of comics or TV monitors. They allow us to deal with very classical painterly issues and iconographies, and with questions of authorship. Due to the collaboration, we can address subjectivity since we already have this question mark behind it. We have started with a self-critical approach that is built in from the outset.

Excerpt from Cerith Wyn Evans in conversation Markus Muntean and Adi Rosenblum
To Die For, De Appel, Amsterdam, 2002

Muntean/Rosenblum’s solo exhibitions include; I always tell you the truth unless of course I am lying to you, Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus, Where else, SECESSION, Vienna and most recently To Die For, at De Appel, Amsterdam, June 2002.