Summer
2003
Art Nouveau
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Artist Markus Linnenbrink (foreground)
with James Elaine
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With
an eye toward emerging talent, Hammer Projects is creating a buzz
that resonates throughout the global art world
By
Cynthia Lee
Photography by Jonah Light
For
two days artist Markus Linnenbrink has been painting, and
in that marathon of expression he has coated nearly all of the 21-foot-high
walls of the marble-floored lobby of the UCLA Hammer Museum with
alternating broad and thin horizontal bands in every imaginable
hue. Allowing gravity to take over, the 41-year-old German has let
the paint drip and dribble playfully, serendipitously, down the
walls in color-changing rivulets.
Working
through the night, when the Hammer’s blazing lights turn the
lobby into a giant illuminated aquarium, the artist manically dips
his brushes into buckets to extend his grid in long, continuous
strokes. By daylight he balances on a ladder to paint within a large
display window facing Westwood Boulevard. A passerby stops, gawks,
smiles and gives him a cheery thumbs up, and Linnenbrink pauses
just long enough to savor the moment. “I love painting here
in such a public place,” he says. “The idea of having
such a huge artwork exposed to so many people is wonderful.”
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