Victory of the visible: On the death of the Berlin gallery owner Klaus Märtens

Although: At the beginning of the 1970s the figurative was with painters like Konrad Klapheck or the representatives of the school of new splendor are still quite present. But then abstraction and conceptual art caught up in Berlin, while Märtens held on to the realists he preferred. His favorites were Rudi Lesser, Klaus Jurgeit, Wladimir Krawtschenko and Peter Hahlbrock, whose wife, the American artist Mara Hahlbrock, once discovered the shop for the gallery.

Corona forced him to give up

There were discussions about the future heraldic animal, and the lynx with its sharp eyes was also an option, recalls the fine booklet accompanying the gallery’s 50th anniversary three years ago. However, the exhibition no longer took place in the rooms in Wilmersdorf: the corona pandemic and his health had already forced Klaus Märtens to give up his gallery.

The two gallery owners Andreas Wolf and Archi Galentz made this last major appearance possible for him in the fall of 2023 in their Pankow rooms. Pictures and sculptures from Märten’s extensive program made visible once again what Märten, who was born in Pomerania in 1937, was concerned with throughout his life: the representational from the perspective of the artists he valued.

A catalog for every exhibition

They were his network; he dedicated a catalog to them for every exhibition throughout the decades. With them, he ultimately decided on the dove as his emblem – a creature anchored in tradition, often underestimated and yet an integral part of the city. And quite a few of the artists returned the favor with works in which a pigeon appears as a motif.

His instinct for original positions has made Märtens a sponsor of future stars on several occasions; This was the case with Liu Ye, who lived in Berlin from 1990 and was represented by the gallery owner at the time. Today the Chinese painter is represented by the New York mega-gallery David Zwirner. There was Märten’s avant-garde, although he wouldn’t necessarily have liked the word. Persistence and steadfastness are where he felt at home. He died on June 28th in Berlin at the age of 89.