Matthias Beckmann, Lichtenberg 2020
Matthias Beckmann will be showing his drawings made in Lichtenberg in May 2020, as a resident of Lichtenberg Studios, in the Museum Lounge, from 5 August 2021.
The exhibition “Lichtenberg 2020” opens on 4 August 2021 at 7 pm and provides, until 19 September, a graphic insight into the new pandemic reality in Lichtenberg in early 2020.
Matthias Beckmann on his impressions:
“In Kreuzberg, the streets were full again in mid-May. As if nothing had happened or everything was already over. The decision for Lichtenberg was spot on. I wanted to draw Berlin in times of Corona while keeping my distance. If I had come a month earlier, I would have found almost deserted places. Even now it was relaxed here. People left me alone and I could work undisturbed.
Basically, the motif of a drawing is irrelevant. It is the occasion for lines on paper. But for the viewers, for whom I also draw, it is nice when they can compare their view of things familiar to them with the view of the draughtsman. For me, a subject and a new place is an incentive to draw, especially if there is a task or an assignment. I would never think of just sitting down on a street corner in familiar surroundings to draw.
I had made a list of some places. The Ring Centre at the Frankfurter Alle S-Bahn station, the Tierpark, the Stasi Museum, the Socialist Memorial at the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery, the Mies van der Rohe House, the studio in the high-rise building … On my bicycle tours I came across more places.”
