Muntean/Rosenblum’s work appropriates adolescent figures from fashion or lifestyle magazines, transforming them into strangely compelling scenes which question the possibility of spirituality in contemporary society. Transferred to paintings, drawings and photographs, the affected stances of these youthful models echo the lines ‘She’s over bored, And self assured’ from the cult anthem Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. Yet behind their studied masks, the figures are full of latent emotions they dare not express: fear, longing, desire and despair. At the core of Muntean/Rosenblum’s practice is what Markus Muntean calls ‘precise ambiguity’. They explore contradictions inherent in the construction of identity and the contemporary notion of self, in works which simultaneously convey absolute banality and spiritual pathos.
Text by Katharine Stout, Tate, Britain