Catalogue: Muntean/Rosenblum

The two artists Markus Muntean (b. 1962) and Adi Rosenblum (b. 1962) have been working together since the 1990s. In their primarily painterly oeuvre, they impressively combine their identities to create one artistic signature. The Städel Museum is dedicating a solo exhibition in its Contemporary Art Collection to the artist duo, featuring a video work and eleven large-format paintings – including two new works – whose settings are places of transit: shopping centres, airport terminals, hotels, or offices. Immersed in their own thoughts, the young protagonists stare intently at their smartphones or gaze into the distance, are in motion or look out at the viewer with boredom or irritation. The work of Muntean/Rosenblum fluctuates between the influences of past art periods and contemporary pop-cultural phenomena. Svenja Grosser, the curator of the exhibition and head of the contemporary art collection, illuminates the cultural anthropological dimension in Muntean/Rosenblum's works from the perspective of this so-called non-places. The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual (German/English) catalogue published with a foreword by Philipp Demandt and an essay by Svenja Grosser.