You can see a portrait of a young man drawn in pencil. The person is shown from chest height, has a narrow face, dark drawn lips and bangs falling over the right eye. The man is wearing a white shirt with a striped tie and a dark jacket.
You can see a portrait of a young man drawn in pencil. The person is shown from chest height, has a narrow face, dark drawn lips and bangs falling over the right eye. The man is wearing a white shirt with a striped tie and a dark jacket.
Stéphane Mandelbaum, P. de Max, 1984 (detail), MUSEUMMMKFÜR MODERNE KUNST

STÉPHANE MANDELBAUM

“I wanted to write my life in life.”
—Pierre Goldman

Driven by fascination as well as by contempt, Stéphane Mandelbaum (1961–1986) produced hundreds of portraits within a short creative period of just ten years. The subjects include Arthur Rimbaud, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Francis Bacon, Pierre Goldman, his grandfather Szulim, and his father Arié Mandelbaum, but also National Socialist criminals such as Joseph Goebbels and Ernst Röhm. Portraying them small and singly or larger than life-size, Mandelbaum sought to capture the essence of their characters with a ballpoint pen, oil paint, or a graphite or colored pencil, often adding scribbles, texts in French, Yiddish, Italian, or German, or collaged newspaper clippings. His Jewish descent, Belgium’s colonial history, but also the nightlife and underworld of Brussels, permeated his work at ever deeper levels and ultimately shaped his life—always driven by the questions: Where do I come from and what can I be?

The retrospective Stéphane Mandelbaum is the third exhibition to take place posthumously.

Information in IS

Exhibition

14 April 2022 — 1 Januar 2023

TOWERMMK

TaunusTurm, Taunustor 1
60310 Frankfurt am Main


mmk@stadt-frankfurt.de
+49 69 212 30447

Exhibition Views

Stéphane Mandelbaum, Installation view TOWER MMK, photo: Fenja Cambeis
Stéphane Mandelbaum, P. de Max, 1984, MUSEUMMMKFÜR MODERNE KUNST, photo: Fenja Cambeis
Stéphane Mandelbaum, Portrait de Meknil, 1985, Private Collection (BE); Portier de nuit, 1984, MUSEUMMMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST, Frankfurt am Main (DE); photo: Fenja Cambeis
Stéphane Mandelbaum, PORTIER DE NUIT, 1984, MUSEUMMMKFÜR MODERNE KUNST, photo: Fenja Cambeis
Stéphane Mandelbaum, Installation view TOWER MMK, photo: Fenja Cambeis
Stéphane Mandelbaum, Changay Park, 1984, Musée Juif de Belgique, photo: Fenja Cambeis
Stéphane Mandelbaum, Installation view TOWER MMK, photo: Fenja Cambeis
Stéphane Mandelbaum, Installation view TOWER MMK, photo: Fenja Cambeis
Stéphane Mandelbaum, L'Albertine Bar (Beautiful Deception), 1986, Private Collection (FR), photo: Fenja Cambeis
Stéphane Mandelbaum, Cadre dans un café rose, 1984, Private Collection (BE), photo: Fenja Cambeis
Stéphane Mandelbaum, Ernst Cön (portrait von Ernst Cön, eïne Punk), 1984, Collection Antoine de Galbert; Stéphane Mandelbaum, Cadre dans un café rose, 1984, Private Collection (BE), photo: Fenja Cambeis
Stéphane Mandelbaum, L'Empire des sens, 1983, Collection MK2 Kréations, photo: Fenja Cambeis
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