City Patron
The Karl Marx alley, the palace of the republic, the bridge of Mostar – all these buildings of historical signification is lying in the arms of a young woman. She holds them caring, nearly cautious. The womans look is calm and introspective, sometimes fixed on the object in her arms, sometimes looking out, searching for the spectator.
The Croatian born artist Irma Markulin is processing in her work the cultural contexts of her homeland Croatia and Berlin, the city she now lives in. In this particular series of works, Irma Markulin also uses the art-historical phenotype of the city-patron as template for the paintings.
Starting in the 4th century it became customary to choose a saint as patron for a new built church. In medieval times the concept was – especially in the Mediterranean – also transferred to cities. The citizens and the senate, e.g. the respective aristocratic ruler, chose a city-patron in order to put the city itself under the protection of the respective saint.
Until the late renaissance era it was common to display sculptures of the city-patron on the city walls, official buildings and the main churches. The presentations of the woman on the paintings, which are self-portraits of the painter herself, resemble specifically the city-patron of Dubrovnik, Saint Blasius. The painter, now herself taking the position of the patron, is seemingly trying to make the spectator aware of the fact that it is up to us to ensure the safety and shelter for these buildings.
Besides of the art-historical context and the painter’s origin, the relations of body, space and architecture as well as history are building the centre of the works. Body and space are herein dealt with in several different layers: the human and the architectural body on the two dimensional canvas, the reciprocal action of the bodies with each other, the architectural body itself, broken away from its embedding into the surrounding ensemble. The installation of the three dimensional, in detail reduced models of the buildings shown on the paintings is providing even another aspect for the spectator. This doubling of the architectural bodies does not only provide a three dimensional perception but puts the respective buildings in relation to one another, creating a fictional architectural ensemble without the historical and local contexts of the buildings themselves.
The relation architecture and history is naturally situated in the buildings chosen fort he works. Every single one of them is as well from historical significance as it stands for a certain phenomenon in our way to deal with architecture, often a durable resemblance of past things: the – now new built – bridge of Mostar is now a memorial for the war on the Balkan, the palace of the republic, pulled down some years after the reunion of the two Germanys, is an object of vanishing, the Karl Marx alley as an architectural ensemble has seen multiple transformations of its social significance in the now six decades of its existence.
Translation Philipp Koch
exhibition view, KörperBau 2008, Galerie ACUD, Berlin