Stéphane Mandelbaum (English)

“I wanted to write my life in life. ” —Pierre Goldman. Driven by fascination as well as by contempt, Stéphane Mandelbaum (1961-1986) produced hundreds of drawings within a short creative period of just ten years. The subjects include portraits of Arthur Rimbaud, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Francis Bacon, Pierre Goldman, his grandfather Szulim, and his father Arié Mandelbaum, but also National Socialist criminals such as Joseph Goebbels and Ernst Röhm. His Jewish descent, Belgium’s colonial history, but also the nightlife and underworld of Brussels, permeated his work at ever deeper levels and ultimately shaped his life—always driven by the questions: Where do I come from and what can I be. Text: Diedrich Diederichsen, Ralf Marsault, Eileen Myles, Tal Sterngast, Susanne Pfeffer.