MAKAYABUNDO SOCIAL CLUB — LOCH Exhibition 2022
LOCH — Makayabundo Social Club brought visual art, live music and social encounter together within an interdisciplinary programme at LOCH in Wuppertal. Marlon Nikolai participated as a visual artist within a wider programme of artists and musicians, including Blumengarten and Lavender.
Seen within Nikolai’s developing practice, the exhibition formed part of an early context in which visual art was experienced alongside music, gathering and collective presence rather than in isolation. The encounter between different artistic practices and modes of perception became part of the spatial and social experience of the exhibition.
Dimensionen des Seins
Dimensionen des Seins was a solo exhibition by Marlon Nikolai presented across three rooms at Kulturbunker Köln-Mülheim.
The exhibition explored different dimensions through which reality becomes perceptible and experienceable. Painting and sculpture operated as interfaces between what is already accessible to perception and aspects of existence that remain latent, unknown or not yet consciously grasped.
Rather than defining the unknown, the exhibition approached it as an open field. Changes in material, scale, spatial arrangement and visual language invited shifts in perception as visitors moved through the three consecutive spaces.
Seen within Nikolai’s broader practice, Dimensionen des Seins marks an important stage in his ongoing investigation into partial aspects of the hidden: phenomena, information, structures and possibilities that have not yet become conscious, sensorially accessible or materially manifest for the individual.
The exhibition therefore positioned the artwork not as an illustration of the hidden, but as a material and perceptual field through which selected aspects of it can enter experience.
The exhibition opened on 27 July with a collaborative performance by Marlon Nikolai and composer and pianist Roman Nagel, extending the exhibition beyond the visual field through the interaction of painting, movement and sound.
EMIK — Multidisciplinary Art Showcase
EMIK brought together painting, photography, performance, music and digital art in a multidisciplinary exhibition at Postwerk Tegel in Berlin. Initiated by Culture.Room and Abstract.Projects, the exhibition challenged linear modes of presentation and created an experiential environment in which contemporary art could be encountered across multiple sensory channels.
Marlon Nikolai participated as one of eight exhibiting artists, presenting the paintings Sakura and Unleashed in Montreal. Alongside the exhibition, he collaborated with pianist Roman Nagel on a live action painting performance. During Nagel’s piano performance, Nikolai painted directly onto the instrument, bringing sound, movement, gesture and material intervention into a simultaneous process.
Following the performance, the transformed piano was auctioned as a benefit project in cooperation with CancelCancer. One hundred percent of the proceeds were donated to the initiative. The piano was acquired by a private couple and was intended to become part of their wedding celebration through a subsequent musical performance.
Seen within Nikolai’s broader practice, EMIK marks an early manifestation of an investigation that continues through his work today: perception beyond the purely visual and the translation between auditory and visual information, bodily action, material, movement and experience.
Sakura was acquired by Glockenweiß during the exhibition and subsequently installed within the company’s Berlin office environment.
Mind Moves Matter
MIND MOVES MATTER brought together a selection of recent works by Marlon Nikolai within the WU-TAL Session at the Schauspielhaus / Pina Bausch Zentrum in Wuppertal.
The presentation explored relationships between consciousness, movement and embodiment, and the processes through which immaterial or internal phenomena become materially experienceable. Materials including epoxy resin, chrome and pigment operate not simply as surfaces, but as means through which perception, reflection and transformation can take form.
Situated within the context of the WU-TAL Session, the presentation created a dialogue between contemporary visual art and urban dance culture: two practices connected through movement, transformation and embodied experience.
UNKNOWN FRACTURES
UNKNOWN FRACTURES brought together positions from visual art, music and design in the exhibition hall of the Reinbeckhallen in Berlin. Presented within PANTOPIA Festival Vol.04, the group exhibition created a multidisciplinary environment centred on artistic exchange, different perspectives and encounters across disciplines.
Marlon Nikolai participated as an exhibiting artist with a selection of six paintings: Mittagssonne auf Capri, Sonnenstich auf Ibiza, Sonnenaufgang auf Guadeloupe, Singularität, Baking Cookies with The Angels.
The presentation brought together works concerned with perception, atmosphere and states of experience. Across the exhibited paintings, colour, gesture and material operate as carriers of sensations and impressions that resist purely linguistic description.
UNKNOWN FRACTURES formed part of a wider programme of exhibitions, installations, performances and music taking place around the Spreehalle and Reinbeckhallen, situating Nikolai’s presentation within a broader interdisciplinary cultural context in Berlin-Schöneweide.
Soirée — Lippe Personal
A private presentation documenting the placement of Taste of the Summer Solstice and the encounter between painting, music, and collector context.
