Marcel van Eeden
Art Today – Drawings and Animations

June 30 to October 6, 2024

Marcel van Eeden, Art Today, 2021, Nerostift, colored pencil on laid paper, Momo Schöning Collection

 

Marcel van Eeden, untitled (from: The Collection. Zurich 1958), 2015, Nerostift, colored pencil on laid paper, Art Collection of the Zurich Cantonal Bank

Image: Marcel van Eeden, untitled (from: The Collection. Zurich 1958), 2015, Nero pencil, colored pencil on laid paper, art collection of the Zürcher Kantonalbank

  • Opening: Sun., June 30, 3 p.m.

When you trace a ... photo, you are in that photo, so to speak, you are walking around in it. ... By trying to study it as precisely as possible, ... you also come very close to the moment in which the photo was taken. You can almost hear the people depicted talking to each other [...]." (Marcel van Eeden)

Like hardly anyone else in contemporary art, Marcel van Eeden gives the medium of drawing cinematic qualities, opening a window into a very vividly portrayed past. Based on photographs from magazines, newspapers, books and catalogues, all printed before his birth in 1965, he explores a time that took place without him, but into which he puts himself and literally “draws”.

 

Marcel van Eeden, untitled (from: Cat. 17.1.4: Zurich, Architecture), 2015, Nero pencil on laid paper, Gerhard Theewen Collection
 

In several groups of drawings, Marcel van Eeden takes us into the past of his adopted home of Zurich, which we explore as if on a city walk - from the modern Bellevue tram stop past the Polybähnli, across Lake Zurich to Picabia and Miró in the Kronenhalle. In the style of pulp fiction, he develops a highly exciting story about cultural loot and Eduard von der Heydt's world art collection, which was to form the basis of the Zurich Rietberg Museum.

Marcel van Eeden sometimes weaves individual narrative strands and figures from his series of drawings together. They can be read as parts of a graphic cosmos that is aesthetically reminiscent of early graphic novels or scenes from film noir. In this world we repeatedly encounter Oswald Sollmann, the mysterious archaeologist, assassin, spy, famous writer – and alter ego of the artist.

 

Marcel van Eeden, The Sollmann Trocadero 1916, 2012, Nero pencil, colored pencil on laid paper, Gerhard Theewen Collection
 

The exhibition presents a selection of drawings from the last 25 years from the Gerhard Theewen Collection in Cologne, supplemented by other loans and a rarely shown series of animations in which van Eeden brings Oswald Sollmann's famous show with chops whirling acrobatically through the air and smoking ghostly to life.

 

Marcel van Eeden
Art Today – Drawings and Animations

June 30 to October 6, 2024

Marcel van Eeden, Art Today, 2021, Nerostift, colored pencil on laid paper, Momo Schöning Collection

 

Marcel van Eeden, untitled (from: The Collection. Zurich 1958), 2015, Nerostift, colored pencil on laid paper, Art Collection of the Zurich Cantonal Bank

Image: Marcel van Eeden, untitled (from: The Collection. Zurich 1958), 2015, Nero pencil, colored pencil on laid paper, art collection of the Zürcher Kantonalbank

  • Opening: Sun., June 30, 3 p.m.

When you trace a ... photo, you are in that photo, so to speak, you are walking around in it. ... By trying to study it as precisely as possible, ... you also come very close to the moment in which the photo was taken. You can almost hear the people depicted talking to each other [...]." (Marcel van Eeden)

Like hardly anyone else in contemporary art, Marcel van Eeden gives the medium of drawing cinematic qualities, opening a window into a very vividly portrayed past. Based on photographs from magazines, newspapers, books and catalogues, all printed before his birth in 1965, he explores a time that took place without him, but into which he puts himself and literally “draws”.

 

Marcel van Eeden, untitled (from: Cat. 17.1.4: Zurich, Architecture), 2015, Nero pencil on laid paper, Gerhard Theewen Collection
 

In several groups of drawings, Marcel van Eeden takes us into the past of his adopted home of Zurich, which we explore as if on a city walk - from the modern Bellevue tram stop past the Polybähnli, across Lake Zurich to Picabia and Miró in the Kronenhalle. In the style of pulp fiction, he develops a highly exciting story about cultural loot and Eduard von der Heydt's world art collection, which was to form the basis of the Zurich Rietberg Museum.

Marcel van Eeden sometimes weaves individual narrative strands and figures from his series of drawings together. They can be read as parts of a graphic cosmos that is aesthetically reminiscent of early graphic novels or scenes from film noir. In this world we repeatedly encounter Oswald Sollmann, the mysterious archaeologist, assassin, spy, famous writer – and alter ego of the artist.

 

Marcel van Eeden, The Sollmann Trocadero 1916, 2012, Nero pencil, colored pencil on laid paper, Gerhard Theewen Collection
 

The exhibition presents a selection of drawings from the last 25 years from the Gerhard Theewen Collection in Cologne, supplemented by other loans and a rarely shown series of animations in which van Eeden brings Oswald Sollmann's famous show with chops whirling acrobatically through the air and smoking ghostly to life.