MANSON TO EXHIBIT IN FLORIDA - November 06 2008

101 NE 40TH STREET MIAMI, FL 33137
p. 305-573-2101 f. 305-573-6101
www.101exhibit.com info@101exhibit.com

Marilyn Manson: Trismegistus
101 NE 40th Street, Design District, Miami. Media Preview Event with Marilyn Manson: December 4, 5:30 – 6:30pm
Exhibition: December 5, 2008 – February 20, 2009
Presented by Galerie Brigitte Schenk, Cologne, and 101 Exhibit, Miami

Multi-talented artist Marilyn Manson, legendary for the cult status of his music career and persona, has simultaneously been creating a large and remarkable body of painting over the past two decades that will be revealed for the first time in the U.S. this December during Art Basel Miami.

Just as Mansonʼs lyrics are provocative, driving the expressive form of music to its limits, the artistʼs paintings, though aesthetically pleasing, play with the grotesque and confront the viewer with the dark side of the American Dream – its obsessions and pitfalls.

This exhibition of more than twenty paintings is presented by the Cologne-based Galerie Brigitte Schenk in cooperation with 101 Exhibit, a dynamic new art space in Miamiʼs design district. The show will remain on view through February 2009. Trismegistus features Mansonʼs paintings from the past eight years. Looking at the works, one enters the artistʼs deep, haunted world and his existential exploration of the human condition.

The artist focuses on the more unpleasant and controversial sides of life – real and fictional – as conveyed through both subject matter and distorted notions of beauty. Parallels to the style and to the “sadomasochistic eroticism” of the German Expressionist painter Egon Schiele can hardly be overlooked, as David Galloway remarked in an article entitled “Gothic Revival” (ARTnews, 2007). He continued, “Mansonʼs subjects are consistent with his bizarre and morbid image: disease, mutilation, addiction, homicide.”

The titles sometimes lighten up the darker, more sensational events that Manson evokes, including: study of the murderess Elizabeth Short, celebrated in the media as the Black Dahlia, bears the title “Elizabeth Short as Snow White, Youʼre sure you will be comfortable?”, “Jon Benet Ramsey as Sleeping Beauty II”, and “Übermensch” painted in honor of Christopher Reeve. Several others allude to Mansonʼs own angst, as in “Green Whore of Love (series I),”

“Iʼve got my arm around no one,” and “The man who eats his fingers” (which the artist specifically notes was produced with caffeine-free chamomile tea). “Marilyn Manson is a living work of art and an anti-popstar. His fine art is an extension of his complex personality and expansive creativity – from his performance art on stage, to his song writing, to his intimate and revealing paintings,” stated his gallerist Brigitte Schenk. “After tremendous popular and critical response to his recent show in Cologne, where over 1,000 people attended the opening, Mansonʼs works are now in collections worldwide. Weʼre thrilled to introduce his art to U.S. audiences for the first time during Art Basel Miami.“