Image: Kunsthalle Emden
Artist, draughtsman and typographer Stefan Marx will take part in a public conversation at Kunsthalle Emden on 1 September, as part of the museum’s monthly ‘Langer Kunstabend’ (Long Art Evening). The discussion will be led by Silke Oldenburg, the institution’s scientific director, and will focus on Marx’s practice in relation to ‘GROSSE BUCHSTABEN, GRELLE FARBEN’ (‘Large Letters, Bright Colours’), the current exhibition at the museum.
The event will take place in the Kunsthalle’s atrium from 7pm to 8pm. Admission to the conversation and the museum is free from 5pm to 9pm during the Long Art Evening, a programme held on the first Tuesday of each month. The September evening is supported by the Aloys Wobben Foundation. The museum has noted that its regular exhibition tour on the same evening is already fully booked.
Marx’s large-scale work ‘I’ll be your mirror’ is currently installed in the atrium. The title refers to a song by the American band The Velvet Underground. The work forms part of the exhibition’s broader examination of how writing operates within contemporary art, where letters, words and sentences can function not only as carriers of meaning but also as independent visual forms.
According to Kunsthalle Emden, Marx frequently works with quotations and everyday fragments drawn from the internet, the media, songs, advertising and overheard conversations. In his practice, these pieces of language are condensed into statements that can appear enigmatic, ironic or reflective. His distinctive cloud-like balloon lettering makes apparently fixed words and expressions seem flexible and changeable, creating tension between the visual appearance of text and its verbal or symbolic meaning.
Born in 1979, Marx studied typography and communication theory and cultural philosophy at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. His drawings and text-based images move between popular and high culture, while his work has appeared on paper and canvas, skateboards, record covers, walls, porcelain and clothing. The museum also identifies fanzines, skateboarding and music culture of the 1990s as important roots of his practice. Marx lives and works in Hamburg and Berlin, and has presented his work in international exhibitions.
‘GROSSE BUCHSTABEN, GRELLE FARBEN’ brings together contemporary artists and graffiti writers to consider legibility, design and the relationship between signs and meaning. The exhibition places graffiti in dialogue with approaches from contemporary painting and includes artists such as Norbert Bisky, Monica Bonvicini, Claudia Comte, Daim, Nadine Fecht, Shilpa Gupta, Stefan Marx, Olaf Metzel, Anselm Reyle, Thomas Scheibitz and Erwin Wurm. It is co-curated by the artist MadC and is scheduled to remain on view at Kunsthalle Emden through 28 February 2027.
