OPENING RECEPTION February 21 from 5:00-7:00 PM

Galleri Urbane is pleased to announce ‘LOCKERUNGSÜBUNG,’ a solo exhibition of the latest works by Berlin based artist Marlon Wobst. This represents the artist’s first solo exhibition at Galleri Urbane. Meet the artist on February 21th from 5:00 - 7:00pm.

Installed exhibition views:

An essay by Eve Hill-Agnus accompanies this text.

Bodies fill Marlon Wobst’s work. They swim, sunbathe, tumble, strain, recover, lounge; they stack and entangle, bend forward and backward, touch their toes. They are unmistakably of our world, yet somehow absorbed in their own.

In one felted work, a multi-hued tangle of figures forms a buoyant melee, a joyous muddle that effervescently defies gravity—as if togetherness itself were enough to lift them. Elsewhere, a nude diver slips headfirst into an expanse of blue; only pink feet remain above the water’s surface, briefly marking the point of departure. The plunge is underway, whether we follow it or not.

Wobst’s figures are wobbly, imperfect, resolutely unheroic. Their awkwardness carries a kind of humility. Skin tones slide across improbable registers, a colorist’s pleasure that reads as affection more than any stylization, intuitive and unburdened by correctness. In ceramic works, a man might stroke a cat; another paint an elephant on his own belly. These gestures feel playful and, while minor, far from empty. They read like pieces of the paintings that have wandered off—modest, tactile, and quietly amused.

His work has often implied water. Recent underwater scenes heighten this suspension. When the entire canvas is submerged, buoyancy replaces gravity as the governing force, and entire zones slip into abstraction. Figures hover, drift, linger. Do we really need an explanation for why? The title LOCKERUNGSÜBUNG—a loosening, warm-up, or resting exercise—seems apt. These are moments not of peak performance but of recovery, transition, preparation. The in-between moments we usually forget to mention.

Canonical art history often trains us to look for the dive and the treasure—the climax, the revelation. Wobst gives us the diver, but withholds the prize. What emerges instead is something more human and emotionally complicated: delight tinged with vulnerability, cheerfulness shadowed by time, and the sense that even play requires care.

Watch:

Video tour of ‘LOCKERUNGSÜBUNG’ by Marlon Wobst

Marlon Wobst (B. 1980 in Wiesbaden) graduated as a painter and master student at Universität der Künste Berlin in 2011 with Professor Robert Lucander. In his body of work, which includes oil paintings, felt tapestries, ceramics, and works on paper; he mainly addresses the human existence. He researches typical everyday moments in life, such as getting dressed, exercising, eating, resting or mating; his large scale paintings, the colorful felt works and rather small, intimate ceramics are all glimpses in his, but also human, experiences, rituals and habits. His works are shown internationally in galleries, museums and institutions such as Kunstverein Siegen (Siegen), Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen), Kunsthalle Hangelar (Sankt Augustin), Galerie Maria Lund (Paris), Galerie Zeller van Almsick (Vienna), and Galleri Urbane (Dallas). Since 2021, Marlon Wobst has a lectureship for painting at the Universität der Künste Berlin.