EXHIBITION Martin Eder
Martin Eder, a renowned German artist is showcasing Monsters of Silence, his first solo exhibition in India. Shirley Mistry tells you more
Galerie Isa is playing host to Martin Eder, a renowned German artist, as he showcases Monsters of Silence, his first solo exhibition in India. Martin grew up in the German countryside and although beautiful and idyllic, the area had the highest suicide and rape rates in Germany during that time. Eder feels no one questioned these things because they were happening behind closed doors. Over the years, he has come to be known as an artist who has the ability to deconstruct the world around him and question the idols of desirability and beauty. “It is not my work that is uncanny, it is the world that surrounds us. As the title suggests, destruction and monstrosity sometimes lie in stillness, lethargy and non-reaction. Violence is hidden in everyday lives. The Monster is not a fictional creature. It can be an ignorant society or a loss of empathy,” says Martin.
With this collection, Martin Eder’s works may seem to be ethereal and luxuriant, but a closer inspection reveals them to be dystopian nightmares — harsh, ugly, edgy and prisons for their protagonists.
Simultaneously, his fascination with science and nature peeks through in his paintings. “My paintings show a micro cosmos that questions the real size of the viewer. They are larger than life. I am fascinated by chaos, randomness in nature and physics,” he adds. An investigation of nature and the relationship between certain, symbolic animals — such as the owl (in the picture on left) and gargantuan depictions of flowers, that though beautiful, are rendered threatening because of their monstrous proportions — form the basis of this exhibition.
Eder also tells us, “Each exhibition has a specific individuality. It comes to you as a natural process of accumulation of thoughts and ideas as time goes by, just like Monsters of Silence or my previous exhibition this year at Hauser & Wirth in Zurich titled The Collective Unconscious.” With Monsters of Silence, Martin successfully manages to crack the surface of seamless beauty and reveals the dark underbelly seething within.
When Up to January 24
Where Galerie Isa, 132, Great Western Building, 1st Floor, Opposite Lion Gate, Fort
Contact 66373432