Join artist Marwan, in conversation with writer and former director of the Berlinische Galerie, Jörn Merkert. The discussion will explore Marwan’s current practice and influences, and his journey through stylistic approaches over an incredibly long and fruitful artist career spanning five decades. Held in the Mosaic Rooms main gallery space, audiences will be surrounded by the works in Marwan’s first UK solo show Not Towards Home, But The Horizon, which include both his early, mid-career and current pieces.

Jörn Merkert (b. 1946), studied art history, history and archaeology in Bonn and Berlin. From 1971 to 1979 he was curator and personal assistant to the director Werner Haftmann at the Nationalgalerie Berlin, and from 1979 to 1984 curator of the visual arts department at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. In 1984 he became deputy director at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, until 1987, and from 1987 to 2010 he was director of the Berlinische Galerie, Museum of Modern Art, Berlin. He is an honourable member of the Society of the Women in the Arts, Berlin, and is an elected member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin (1992). He has written numerous essays and monographs on twentieth-century artists including Horst Antes, Jean Dubuffet, Naum Gabo, Julio González, Hans Hartung, Hannah Höch, Howard Kanovitz, Ed and Nancy Kienholz, Marwan, Willem de Kooning, Eduardo Paolozzi, Alicia Penalba, Germaine Richier, George Rickey, David Smith, Emilio Vedova, Wolf Vostell, among others. Since his retirement in 2010, he has lived and worked as a freelance writer in Bavaria, Southern Germany.