The Julian Schnabel and Vahakn Arslanian Mentorship Project

In search­ing for the avenues of cre­ativ­i­ty, the May­bach Foun­da­tion cre­at­ed an art men­tor­ing pro­gram — coin­cid­ing with the Venice Bien­nale in 2011. The unique col­lab­o­ra­tion between artist Julian Schn­abel and pro­tégé Vahakn Arslan­ian led to an eye-catch­ing piece of art, to say the least. Julian Schn­abel earned recog­ni­tion as a painter and sculp­tor with an invalu­able impact on the Neo-Expres­sion­ism movement.

Self-taught Pro­tégé Arslan­ian, who was born deaf in Bel­gium and grew up in New York, has a par­tic­u­lar fas­ci­na­tion with bro­ken and shat­tered glass – which is dis­tinc­tive­ly reflect­ed in his art­work. Arslan­ian was just five years old when he first met his men­tor, Julian Schn­abel, who so to speak intro­duced him to the world of art dur­ing a vis­it to Schn­abel’s open-air stu­dio in New York. Mean­while, Pro­tégé Vahakn’s work has been shown in mul­ti­ple solo exhi­bi­tions in Lon­don, Antwerp, Gene­va, St. Barthéle­my, and his native New York City, as well as numer­ous group exhi­bi­tions, includ­ing the St. Moritz Art Mas­ters. He also par­tic­i­pat­ed at Foun­da­tion and May­bach Brand events includ­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion at the COE in Sep­tem­ber 2012.

Their unique men­tor­ing rela­tion­ship orig­i­nates from the same grasp on artis­tic under­stand­ing. The artists both under­stand the inspi­ra­tion that can stem from dis­or­der – this resem­blance enables them to com­mu­ni­cate with one anoth­er in a dis­tinc­tive way. On top of this, Schn­abel even direct­ed the doc­u­men­tary ‚Vahakn: Por­trait of an artist‘ which gives insight into the artist’s mind­set and the approach to his artwork.

This out­stand­ing con­nec­tion paved the way for their icon­ic col­lab­o­ra­tion ‚The Ones You Did­n’t Write – The May­bach Car.‘ They recon­struct­ed a May­bach guard car that has been shot with high pow­ered rifles and, there­fore, caught Schn­abel’s atten­tion. The artists cre­at­ed a lot of room for open inter­pre­ta­tion by cov­er­ing the entire exte­ri­or with a strik­ing vari­ety of female names in a vibrant red. The out­come clear­ly reflects that the two artists are con­nect­ed spir­its — com­mit­ted to break­ing down the pre­vail­ing aes­thet­ic order in order to estab­lish a new way of seeing.

‚The Ones You Did­n’t Write‘ was installed on the Grand Canal in front of the Palaz­zo Poli­gnac stand­ing on a float­ing pon­toon until 31 May 2011 and lat­er on moved to the Arse­nale Bacin. In a city that prides itself on being ‚car-free,‘ this art­work most def­i­nite­ly strikes the eye.