“MARCEL EICHNER: ME”
Through June 6 at Haverkampf Gallery, Berlin

What the gallery says: “In the fall of 2018, Marcel Eichner terminates the lease of his Berlin studio and moves to Spain. He not only leaves Berlin, he makes a radical cut. In the new surroundings, M.E. changes his method painting by painting. In 2020, he begins to create oil paintings with simple brush strokes that directly deal with his environment. Introspective becomes extrospective. A new beginning is taking place here. At least that’s how it seems.

Back in Berlin to attend the funeral service of a friend, he coincidentally ends up in his old apartment that he used to live in 15 years before. This is where he paints during the first lockdown and discovers a canvas which he painted in 2005 in this very apartment. It depicts the same subject, his old room, including a view from the window.

Since it is currently not possible to transport the paintings to Berlin that he created in Spain for this exhibition, he paints them ‘anew.’ New paintings based on the same principle, with a view into the world that surrounds him.”

Why it’s worth a look: Hark! Galleries and museums are beginning to slowly reopen in cities around the world, and it is as exciting as the first blooms of spring poking out of the cold ground. This show of paintings made “anew” in his Spanish style by the German artist in light of the isolation of Berlin’s lockdown, is a perfect entree into the new post-lockdown era: a rumination on being inside and alone with one’s surroundings, but maintaining a gaze out towards the future.

Like many artists before him, Eichner paints what he sees, in this case a forced meditation on still lifes that functions as a visual diary too. Through window panes we see time changing in the colors of the day and night, the weather patterns, and blossoms on the tree limbs, and see time literally passing in the paintings of clock faces.

What it looks like:

Installation view, “Marcel Eichner: ME” at Haverkampf Gallery.

Marcel Eichner, Dalmantinervase I (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Haverkampf Gallery.

Marcel Eichner, Fenster III (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Haverkampf Gallery.

Marcel Eichner, blaues Fenster (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Haverkampf Gallery.

Marcel Eichner, Fenster I (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Haverkampf Gallery.

Installation view, “Marcel Eichner: ME” at Haverkampf Gallery.

Marcel Eichner, Uhr (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Haverkampf Gallery.

Marcel Eichner, grune Uhr (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Haverkampf Gallery.

Marcel Eichner, eine Uhr (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Haverkampf Gallery.

Marcel Eichner, jFenster mit Ast und roter Ecke (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Haverkampf Gallery.

Marcel Eichner, japanischer Sonnenschirm II (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Haverkampf Gallery.

Marcel Eichner, Osterglocken (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Haverkampf Gallery.

Marcel Eichner, Osterglocken (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Haverkampf Gallery.