“The past year shook up the art industry as never before.” You can read this assessment by Colleen Cash, Vice President of artnet’s auction division, in a company announcement the listed art portal made on 17 May 2021. Although here in Germany’s far north – Art.Salon is based in Hamburg, the city of Hanseatic serenity – shake-ups are not usually diagnosed quite so quickly, there is nevertheless no doubt that the art market is currently undergoing considerable changes and also facing serious challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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Identity in a social context
Matthew Eguavoen portrays people with a strong personality and a fixed gaze. Depicted against a reduced background, the social context is kept deliberately hidden, making it a subject for discussion. Eguavoen challenges the observer to speculate about the living conditions, experiences and characters of the people depicted, and takes them into uncertain terrain. A young artist from Nigeria with his own signature, whose paintings deal with the central question of origin and identity.
»Photography is my work - watercolors are my pearls.«
With city views of Berlin, Efraim Habermann became known to a broad public as a photographer in the 1960s. His works are characterized early on by a distinctive, concise style and unusual perspectives. Today, after a 50-year creative phase, he has an extensive body of photographic work, consistently in black and white, with numerous series from Israel, Venice and Berlin, still lifes, portraits and photographic collages. Habermann's »pearls«, his mostly constructivist watercolors, geometric forms in strong colors, finely balanced into a postcard-sized composition, seem almost like a commentary on his own conception of the image. An extensive exhibition of works from the artist's private archive can now be seen in Berlin from mid-February.