Stefan Marx

Drawing and Reading In 2019, Berlin-based contemporary artist Stefan Marx created a series of drawings for a daily column in The New York Times. Now, he has turned his Reading the News series into quite a unique board book. Whether you think of it as an artist’s book, a coloring book, or an inspiring children’s book, it opens up unusual spaces for our imaginations. With just a few concise lines, Stefan Marx cheerful fruit and veg will change your frame of mind about reading the news.

Berlin Drawings 2 is released three years after the first volume, one could say the two volumes span pre- and post-pandemic Berlin. The small scale drawings were made in different situations – being on public transport, in nature, at the TXL airport, walking in different neighborhoods, or just at home. On 300 pages Stefan shares his impressions, thoughts and observations of his surrounding space, drawing down faces, typographies, animals, daydreams and quotes of Berlin. Berlin Drawings 2 is Stefan's 30th publication with Nieves. Stefan Marx is a Berlin based artist. His work is drawing based and exhibited internationally. His artist books are published by Nieves, Rollo-Press, and Christoph Keller Editions/JRP Ringier – beside these releases he publishes regulary by himself. All Smallville Records releases are visually defined by Marx’ drawings. Since 2017 he works with the Berlin based porcelain manufacture KPM on various projects, he has lectured widely and taught Drawing at the Bauhaus University in Weimar.

Words become images—writing, drawings, designs. For around twenty years Stefan Marx has been studying script. Lines of songs, sayings, sentences, and quotations, which he then translates in his own script, his graphic writing, into paintings or drawings—two-dimensional surfaces. The poetry of the statements and the painterly quality of the execution combine to form strong works of art. Marx develops each of his pieces with great precision for the specific situation, for the individual work of art, regardless of whether it is an edition, a unique work, a house, or a small invitation card. This is the first book about his Word Paintings in their many varieties and in all media. Essays explain Marx’s drawing, printmaking, and painting, as well as his unique interplay of art and pop culture, sign and life.

Rebel Without A Cause is a project by artist Stefan Marx and distiller Christoph Keller. It features Keller's exorbitant collection of over 150 traffic tickets and regulatory warnings that he accumulated over the last 20 years. These acts of misconduct and unpleasant letters by the authorities transform into art with Stefan Marx’ associative drawings layered on top of each ticket. The originals were sold for the same price as the fine multiplied by 7 at Galerie Karin Guenther in Hamburg, under the motto "cheaper ticket = inexpensive artwork" thus the initial punishment transforming into a reward, value and joy.

Die oeffentliche Kritik verlangt die immanente Kritik der Theorien der OEffentlichkeit. Indem sie nachvollzieht, wie politische Herrschaft in die oeffentlichen Diskurse einwandert, ist sie kritische Theorie der OEffentlichkeit. Indem sie eine Kritik am deliberativen Demokratiekonzept entwickelt, ist sie eine Ethik der Dissidenz. Die These ist, dass die agonale Beschaffenheit des Politischen Anforderungen an die Politik stellt, die sich nicht durch permanenten Diskurs bearbeiten lassen, sondern nur durch ein Bewusstsein fur die Zerbrechlichkeit politischer Praxis. Dissidenz muss dem, was sich bestandig diskursiv als Selbstverstandlichkeit etabliert, immer auf neuem Stand opponieren. Sei es die OEffentlichkeit im Nationalsozialismus oder die diskursive Verflussigung von Souveranitat im World Wide Web.

Als Ende der 90er-Jahre Tony Blair und Gerhard Schröder an die Macht kamen, war viel die Rede von Neuer Mitte und Spin Doctoring - linke Politik in neuer Verpackung. Stefan Marx, selbst aktiver Beobachter des politischen Geschehens in Berlin und London, beleuchtet die Hinterbühnen der Regierungszentralen unter Tony Blair und Gerhard Schröder. Er vergleicht den Stil der Informationspolitik der beiden Regierungschefs. Der Autor sprach dafür mit 50 Spitzenakteuren aus Polit-PR und Journalismus. Seine Untersuchung zeigt: Der Hype um den angeblich allmächtigen Spin Doctor verdeckt das eigentliche Phänomen - die verzweifelte Suche der Regierenden nach Antworten auf das rasante Tempo der neuen 24-Stunden-Newsmedien.