Martin Werthmann: Catastrophe as Space

Martin Werthmann (*1982) is one of the most prominent artists worldwide to make an intensive study of the woodcut as a genre. His monumental colour woodcuts, executed on large widths of paper, enchant by means of his radically new language of forms and aesthetics, which puts the vague and diffuse in the center of attention.

Werthmann’s more recent works are based on structures and elements from photographs of attacks and acts of war. In numerous superimposed layers he translates them into the medium of the woodcut and thus creates pictorial spaces which are full of tension and as they hover between beauty and violence. With a particular focus on the SILENCE series this volume presents for the first time a comprehensive overview of the impressive work of this Berlin-based artist.