Stéphane Mandelbaum at the DRAWING CENTER

James Kalm came of age artistically during a tour of duty in Germany in the mid-1970s. Seeing the works of artists like George Grosz, Otto Dix, and Max Beckmann, had prominent influences in his early development. Coming to New York a few years later, your correspondent witnessed firsthand the tsunami of the European Trans-Avantgarde, and East Village Neo-Expressionism. But rarely has the spirit of a zeitgeist been captured more poignantly than in the drawings of Stéphane Mandelbaum. An artist from a mixed Jewish background, Mandelbaum was a child prodigy, who drifted at the peripheries of Brussel’s underground punk scene. He documented the denizens of this milieu and portrayed also Nazi leaders, poets and pornographic filmmakers. Ultimately, getting caught up in an art heist gone bad, he is murdered by local gangsters at the age of twenty-five. This exhibition, curated by Laura Hauptman, was inspired by an earlier 2022 Mandelbaum show at the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt Germany. A musical introduction is provided by “Go Alan Go” Zavodsky. This program was recorded January 14, 2024. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk