Entropy and Hope: Jakob Mattner

In the second volume exploring the impact of and response to an exhibition, the artist Jakob Mattner questions which perspective we might take in light of current world events. In his exhibition Deep Time, shown over five months at St. Matthäus, which is part of the Kulturforum Berlin, he expanded the concept of time into deep time, shifting perspective to a world without us, to a time before humankind existed, and transforming fundamental questions of meaning into expanded fields of perception and spaces for contemplation.

Authors Verena Auffermann, Hannes Langbein, Bernd Scherer, and Rudolf Zwirner explore the artist’s most recent work Deep Time. They reflect upon his artistic dialogue with forms of life and the threats they are facing against the backdrop of a looming existential crisis for our civilisation.

Mattner's drawings, paintings, and sculptures develop in the transitions between light and dark. He has been influenced by the iconicity of Malevich and the light-dynamics of Moholoy-Nagy, post-revolutionary constructivism, the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio, and the simple means of Arte Povera. In his art, Mattner has created a singular free space of a continuing avant-garde. Pontus Hultén has written that Mattner’s work is marked by the mystery of perspective, explored and elevated by the means of light. For the project Gazing at the Sun, Mattner cooperated for two years with astrophysicists from the Einstein Tower in Potsdam and showed the overlapping of art and science in several museums exhibitions.

Text in English and German.

Jakob Mattner trained at the Academy of Fine Arts Berlin (1967-1972) and has received scholarships and prizes from Villa Serpentara in Olevano, Italy, the DAAD in Rome, Villa Romana in Florence, and Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. Mattner's work has been exhibited in museums, biennials, and galleries throughout Europe, Russia, South America, and the United States. He lives in Berlin.