The Museum of New Art-Portsmouth (MONA) is proud to announce its inaugural exhibition, THEREARESPACESTHATBREATHE by Markus Linnenbrink. The exhibition includes a full room site-specific installation inspired by the architectural spaces of the Museum of New Art, sculptures, paintings, works on paper and ceramics. This exhibition will be a survey presentation of the artist’s oeuvre.
Scheduled to open to the public on October 23rd and run through February 2022, the exhibition will be presented in the 6,800 s. f. space at the newly restored and renovated 1905 YMCA building in downtown Portsmouth. MONA will mark its opening with a public grand celebration of THEREARESPACESTHATBREATHE on Saturday, October 23rd, 6-8 pm. The evening will include an Artist Talk by Markus Linnenbrink and the unveiling of a commissioned video documenting Linnenbrink’s preparations for this exhibit.
Linnenbrink works with resin and pigments to create objects and paintings saturated with dramatic colors. At times, the epoxy forms interplay between depressed channels and raised surfaces, while the vivid colors used in his work produce intense compositions. “Like music, colors create their own space,” says Markus Linnenbrink. “Taken in this light, they can open doors for us to experience the self and its surroundings in surprising and meaningful ways. Like music, colors also occupy our minds, not in a straight analytical way, but on very complex emotional, sensual, and seductive levels.”
A selection of painted chairs allows visitors to move around the galleries with the opportunity for repose and to experience a chosen work comfortably. In utilizing the chairs, the viewers become a part of the environment and interact with the artwork directly.
THEREARESPACESTHATBREATHE will open to the public on October 23, 2021. The museum will be open Tuesday-Wednesday, 10am to 5pm, Thursday through Saturday, 10am to 9pm and Sunday, 10am to 5pm. MONA will be closed on Mondays.
Markus Linnenbrink is represented by Miles McEnery Gallery in New York City; Max Estrella in Madrid, Spain and Taubert Contemporary, in Berlin, Germany.
His work is included in the following select collections: City of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany; Clemens-Sels Museum, Neuss, Germany; Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA; El Espacio 23, Miami, FL; Hammer Museum of Art, University of California Los Angeles, CA; Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzliya, Israel; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Recklinghausen, Germany; Leinemann Foundation, Berlin, Germany; Margain-Junco Collection, Monterrey, Mexico; Ministry of Culture, The Hague, The Netherlands; Museum Ostwall, Dortmund, Germany; Neue Galerie, Kassel, Germany; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Philadelphia, PA; Rockefeller Group, New York, NY; Sammlung Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; Schwarts Art Collection, Harvard Business School, Cambridge, MA; UBS Art Collection, New York, NY