Mordstein, Karl (1937-2006), Memory and Present, 1983

Karl Ludwig Mordstein(1937 Füssen - 2006 Wilszhofen), Memory and Present , 1983. Color etching, copy 41/50, 22.5 x 28 cm (image), 40 x 45 cm (sheet), 43 x 48 cm (frame), titled, numbered, monogrammed and dated with pencil. Framed behind glass.

- in very good condition

- The flowing space of memory -

On an implied horizon line, a dog-like animal has risen on its hind legs and is about to jump over some kind of hurdle. To the left, a small flag is waving in the wind. The animal and the flag point forward, toward the reader, into the future. The flagpole, however, bends backwards in the opposite direction, corresponding to the impulse of movement of the sign-like formations in the "sky". The title of this work by Mordstein is also revealing. It reads "Memory and Presence" and thematizes the system of signs above the animal as memory. It is therefore not so much a sky as the space of remembering consciousness. Memory moves into the past, but comes from the future and begins where the animal first moves. Here, Mordstein develops a subtle pictorial philosophy about the character of time and the structure of memory, in which the system of signs representing the content of consciousness is inspired by the pictorial language of Paul Klee, whom Mordstein continues to think about in his own way.

About the artist

After graduating from the Werkkunstschule in Augsburg, Karl Mordstein worked as a commercial artist in Munich before becoming a freelance artist and concentrating entirely on his own creations. In 1970 Mordstein married the sculptor Sinen Thalheimer and the artist couple moved to Starnberg. In 1972, Mordstein had his first solo exhibition in Munich, which marked the beginning of an active international exhibition career that lasted for decades. From 1987 the couple lived on the Hollerberg in Wilzhofen.

"It is certainly not wrong to recognize in the impression of his calmly floating color drawings the expression of a state of mind that owes itself precisely to this conscious turning away from the hectic art market: concentrated serenity. It is not a changing state of mind, but an empathy with the supra-individual rhythms of creation, the perpetual genesis in the natural cycle of becoming and passing, which is expressed in them."

- Stefan Tolksdorf

Selected Bibliography

Karl Mordstein. Aquarelle, Gouachen 1972 – 1975, Galerie Angst und Orny, München 1975.

Juliane Roh: Karl Mordstein. Bilder, Paintings 1976 – 79, Frankfurt a. M. 1979.

Siegfried Salzmann (Text): Karl Mordstein. Arbeiten auf Papier, Galerie Dorothea van der Koelen, Mainz 1982.

Galerie Heimeshoff (Hrsg.): Karl Mordstein. "Seelen-Notate"; Bilder, Arbeiten auf Papier, Bildkästen; 1985 – 1988, Essen 1988.

Stefan Tolksdorf (Text): Lebenszeichen. Mordstein, Karl und Sinen Thalheimer, Essen 2009.