MEHMET & KAZIM
b. 1984, GermanyThe characters in Mehmet & Kazim’s paintings dissolve and absorb everything around them into an indiscernible bubble. These charmingly overwhelmed incognitos, crushed by responsibility, capitalism, discrimination, consumerism, or gentrification, walk around with plastic bags with their recent purchases, smiling from ear to ear (or hand to hand?), on the brink of despair, silently screaming or just sweating out of fear of discovery – perhaps the bags don’t contain anything bought at all. There is something both funny and tragic about them: chewed up and spit out by the city, they have been here for quite some time. As the darkness weighs on these creatures, resisting explosion, black seems the natural colour to depict them.
Recent institutional exhibitions include their presentation at Various Others, Munich (2025), MAGIC + COOL. Malerei der Jahrtausendwende at Museum Penzberg, Germany (2023); Zwei. Zur Aktualität des Duos at Städtische Galerie Villingen Schwenningen, Germany (2023); OHNE TITEL. Junge Malerei aus Süddeutschland und der Deutschschweiz at Kunstmuseum Singen, Germany (2022); and Debutants at Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2019).
Courtesy Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin/Basel.
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