ICONCLASH : Jean-Luc Moermn

Galerie Leu is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of the Belgian artist Jean-Luc Moerman (* 1967 Brussels) in Germany. Moerman, who lives and works in Brussels, already took part in several international exhibitions and fairs (New York, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai, Barcelona, Basel and of course Brussels). His style is very unique and can not really be clearly categorized. His roots are in the Street Art but his current work is multifarious and oscillates between organic drawing, psychedelic painting, biomorphic design and pop.

Moermans career as an artist has begun in the early 90ties offside the institutional art world, in the streets of Brussels, where he began to develop his first biomorph shapes on stickers, which were quickly presented all over the cityscape. Even during his first visit in New York in 1992, the capital of contemporary street art, Moerman's urban tattoos could achieve a kind of own label and are remarkable until today.

 

Lately, Moerman was honored as he was chosen to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Paris fashion Label Longchamp. Therefore, he created sixty unique handbags with his inimitable tattoos which were presented in a huge campaign by Kate Moss. In occasion of these festivities, Moermans work was also exhibited in Paris, New York and Tokyo. Besides his first solo show in Germany, Moerman will also take part at the Seoul Biennale in South Korea this year.

 

In Munich, Galerie Leu gives an overview of Moermans whole career. On display are paintings, works on paper as well as sculptures. In focus are his famous tattoos in which Moerman converts existing artworks out of the art, politics and modern pop culture in his very own way, by applying certain unique patterns on their skin. In the exhibition, the visitor is coming a cross icons from various times and very different cultural provenances (among others: Botticelli's Venus, Kate Moss and Scarlett Johansson as well as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and even Angela Merkel or Nicolas Sarkozy). Through the traditional and intercultural act of tattooing, Moerman dissolves the original symbolic function of the Icons and gives them a new meaning. Against the actual iconographic idea, the spectator will find a new, strange atmosphere, which varies between irony, worship and cartoon. But Moermans distinct use of shape does not only work on human skin, it is basically independent of its media. It integrates itself, unagitated, on every surface. Once begun, it seems that it infects autonomously the environment. Like a virus, it absorbs walls, windows, papers, canvases, aluminum boxes and any kind of ready-mades.