Claudia Walde (born 1980), also known in street art as MadC, is one of the world’s most recognised graffiti artists. Even though she mainly applies the paint with a brush in her paintings on glass, the transparency and deliberate running marks are always reminiscent of the translucent mist of paint from a spray can. Thanks to MadC, even the functional rooms in the mre offer artistic enjoyment. The planning of the sanitary areas on the lower ground floor was specifically geared towards the backlit glass paintings Wandering Thoughts.
Mad C
Wandering Thoughts, 2020
Currently exhibited: No
Material: Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
Size: 120 x 140 cm
Inv-Nr.: B_526
Keywords:
Urban space is an important source of inspiration to MadC. Using a spray can and a cherry picker, she transforms bridge sections, walls and multi-storey building façades into paintings. Claudia Walde (born 1980), operating under the street art name MadC, is one of the most recognised graffiti artists worldwide. Five of her works are included in the mre collection and demonstrate the breadth of her experience in the field. The artist takes the powerful luminosity of her occasionally monumental façade painting then condenses it into her work on canvas. She may be using brushes but the transparent application of the acrylic paint and the deliberate run marks are a reminder of the translucent mist of paint and the use of spray cans.
For Wandering Thoughts, Walde has transferred her paintings on to glass. This is quite an artistic challenge. First she breaks down her own careful and interlocking compositions into their constituent pieces. Then, a huge number of individual glass pieces are produced which are then cut, placed and layered beside and over one another until the desired depth, transparency and colour strength is achieved. Similar to Katharina Grosse and Karl-Martin Hartmann, Walde also worked closely with the Derix Glass Studios in Taunusstein. They were an invaluable source of glass-painting expertise and the artistic sensitivity necessary for her works’ realisation. Thanks to this mutually appreciative cooperation between the artist and the glass experts, the mre function rooms are also an artistic delight. Claudia Walde’s colour, transparency and light create a unique artistic atmosphere for numerous locations throughout the mre.
Stepping into the public areas of the mre, it is clear that our museum is not only home to the abstract art of the past. Eduardo Chillida, Katharina Grosse, Karl-Martin Hartmann, Bettina Pousttchi and Claudia Walde prove that any number of contemporary artists are continuing to add new and exciting chapters to the evolving story of abstraction.