Jannis Marwitz's Anachronistic Paintings at Dortmunder Kunstverein Blend Historical Styles

Jannis Marwitz's exhibition 'Narch Till June / Närz bis April' at Dortmunder Kunstverein from 23 November 2019 to 9 February 2020 featured paintings that provocatively mash up art historical styles, from Late Gothic Flemish works to the Italian Renaissance. The Brussels-based artist's earlier trompe l'oeils of Greco-Roman grave plates in bright colors gave way to genre-hopping canvases that rework Old Master techniques without direct copying. In the small, meticulously painted 'Untitled' (2019), a pensive adolescent with Flemish physiognomy is surrounded by waves, a crab pulling his tongue, a sea snake, and a witchlike figure, all rendered with soft, liquefied textures and enigmatic reddish bars. The large-format 'Die Frösche' (The Frogs) depicts a young man menaced by geese and a large beaky bird against an elegiac landscape, creating allegorical ambiguity. Another untitled work portrays Marwitz's partner, artist Christiane Blattmann, in a Neue Sachlichkeit style, with a rustic interior and shiny quilted jacket highlighting temporal friction. Recurring motifs include geese, as seen in 'Poacher', which shows a muscular man with a fish, and a repeated head in 'Poachers', building a web of connections across the show. Marwitz's use of thick wire for hanging adds to the anachronistic feel, with each painting offering a unique, jamais-vu experience that evokes sacred viewing contexts. The exhibition was reviewed in the March 2020 issue of ArtReview, translated by Liam Tickner.