Since the late 1970's and up until his departure, Abdul Mati Klarwein rescued forsaken paintings from flea markets and thrift stores, buying them for the same price or less of a virgin canvas of the same size in an art shop, bringing them back to life by what he called improving or recycling them.
When in need of a brake from his ultra detailed paintings for which he is most well known for, Mati Klarwein added to these, second hand purchased paintings, what he thought was missing, what he wanted to see in them and at the same time giving them a new meaning by displacing them from their role as a purely visual product, simulating the style of the original artist to give a sensation of unity, and if placed, always sharing both signatures. A paint brushed dance between the two artists, the past and the present, life and death, bad and good, good and gooder.
"Portrait of the real Mrs. Baselitz" 1988
"Smile" 1988" Smile! You're entering the world of must
Put a straight jacket upon your lust
Beware! The quiver of your lips will tell
If your libido will roast in hell "
( Texts by M.Klarwein from "Improved Paintings" Max Publishing )
"The Tyranny of Aesthetics" 1992"John Cage, The composer of ready-made sounds said that aesthetics is for the artists what ornithology is for the birds; Just like bliss, art is good by definition otherwise it would not be considered art, there is no such thing as bad art because it is a contradiction in terms. Have you ever heard of bad bliss??"
"Therefore I am" 1988
"Self-portrait of Dorian Gray" 1983" Francisco Goya sez: "Time also paints"
"Besides flying from the canvas to your eye at 299 792 458 meters per second, that is"
Replies Albert Lunchtime "
"Sirroco" 1992
"Ethnic cleaning lady" 1997
All texts and images are copyright of the Klarwein family ©
