THE ARTISTRY OF MATI KLARWEIN will always be connected with the music that he helped visualise: the mind-拡大するing 探検s of the late sixties and 早期に seventies. Perhaps the 記録，記録的な／記録する covers of Santana's "Abraxas" and Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" are even more 広範囲にわたって recognised than their musical content. At the very least anyone who has ever owned a copy of either of those albums can 証言する that the cover-絵s are as integral to the experience as the music itself.
Today Mati Klarwein resides on the island of Majorca in the Mediterranean, where he was gracious enough to receive us.

Mati Klarwein at his art show in Stockholm in May 1996. Photograph © Karl-Erik Tallmo.

In the late fifties the 広大な／多数の／重要な jazz musician Yusef Lateef received a portrait of himself from a painter 指名するd Abdul Mati. Lateef was portrayed as almost buried in a pile of exotic flowers, 明らかに enjoying himself with whatever he was doing. The artist waited for some time for any 肉親，親類d of 返答 - but 非，不，無 （機の）カム. Finally he decided to call the big man himself and as it turned out Mr. Lateef had liked the 絵 very much and asked Abdul Mati to come 負かす／撃墜する to the Village 先導, where he was 成し遂げるing at the time. And so Mati did.
- Across the 最高の，を越す of the 絵 I'd written 初めの Portrait of the 広大な／多数の／重要な Yusef Lateef 手渡す Painted by Abdul Mati.  After the gig we were supposed to discuss the 未来 use of the 絵 as a 記録，記録的な／記録する cover. So when the concert was over I went over to his （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. I 演説（する）／住所d him, he looked at me, but continued his discussion with the others at the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. So I 演説（する）／住所d him again and introduced myself as the artist who'd sent him the portrait. Once again I was ignored and this time he didn't even bother to look up...
- Yusef Lateef doesn't like white people and 明白に he thought that a man called Abdul would be anything but white, Mati says and shrugs his shoulders a little dejectedly.
Mati Klarwein was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1932. Two years later, に引き続いて Hitler's coming into 力／強力にする, he fled with his parents to パレスチナ, now イスラエル.

"Soundscape", 1980, 180 cm x 180 cm.

- I grew up in three different cultures, the ユダヤ人の, Islamic and the Christian. These circumstances and my family's 厳しい 抵抗 against 存在 part of any 肉親，親類d of orthodoxy has made me the 部外者 I am today and always has been, Mati says and 注ぐs himself another cup of tea.
- That is also why I took the 指名する Abdul. If everybody in the Middle-East would call themselves Abdul, it would 確実にする a 仲直り that would end the antagonism and the wars in that part of the world. At least that's what I thought at the time.
Anyone who spends a few days with Mati will soon discover that this is a typical 声明. His gentle ways and general open-mindedness 茎・取り除くs from his multi-cultural background and his experiences during the 幻覚的な 時代. And the figurative language that he has made his own 大部分は consists of sensual images 力／強力にするd with the magical and mystical symbolism that is closely connected to the ideals of that time.

"Mirrors Have No Taste", 1981, 160 cm x 160 cm. (Click on the image to open a larger copy in a new window! 221 K)

In the fifties Mati Klarwein moved to Paris, a city then seething with existentialist ideas and jazz music.
- My ambition was to go to Hollywood and become a movie director, but instead I went to Paris and 熟考する／考慮するd 絵 for Fernand Léger. I realise Fernand's greatness, but he was never any direct source of inspiration to me. His main 出資／貢献 to my artistic 開発 was introducing me to the art of Salvador Dalí. The movie Un Chien Andalou 事実上 took my breath away.
- I was also profoundly 影響（力）d by both the Italian renaissance painters and the Flemish masters. Not to について言及する Indian tantric art!

"輪郭（を描く）", 1985, 195 cm x 114 cm. (Click on the image to open a larger copy in a new window! 217 K+21 K portrait)

After a few years in the French 資本／首都 he took 住居 on the Riviera, in the town of S:t Tropez. There he became aquainted to 非常に／多数の socialites, such as Brigitte Bardot, and also met two people that would change the course of both his 私的な and professional lives. One was Ernst Fuchs, who advised him to 精製する his oil 絵s by inducing part of casein tempera, something Mati has stuck to ever since. The other was a 豊富な woman, some twenty years older than him who became his passion, mecenate, educator and travelling companion for the next seven years to come. Together they visited almost every part of the 惑星 scurrying from Tibet, India and Bali in the east, over North Africa, Turkey and across Europe to Cuba and America in the west. Travels that 供給（する）d Mati with enough visual memories to 燃料 his artwork until this very day.
In New York in 1964 Mati - by then Abdul Mati - 原因（となる）d a commotion after having 展示（する）d his blasphemic 絵 Crucifixion. The motif of the 絵 存在 a myriad of people caught in a garden of earthly delights, where no 性の, racial or gender 障壁s are 耐えるing any significance. Something that threw parts of the society in such a 激怒（する） that Mati at one point even was attacked by a man violently chopping away with a 抱擁する axe.

"Crucifixion" ("Freedom of 表現"), 1963-66, 詳細（に述べる）. (Click on the image to see the 詳細（に述べる） in larger 規模 in a new window! 187 K)

Even though Crucifixion 原因（となる）d a lot of animosity at the time, it was also to become part of the Aleph 聖域, a 寺-like building consisting of 78 絵s from Mati's 生産／産物, that made him climb from obscurity into a long-を待つd place in the sun. The Aleph 聖域, すなわち, was the place where Carlos Santana spent hours tripping out in 深遠な meditation over the 絵 Annonciation, later to become the 記録，記録的な／記録する cover of his million selling album Abraxas.
- At the time it must have been the second-most 井戸／弁護士席-known 絵 in the world, besides Leonardo da Vinci's La Gioconda, Mati says with a bitter-甘い smile at the comparison with the renaissance 巨大（な）.
Not only Santana would choose to utilise the vivid and intricate imagery of Mati's 絵s as the visual embodiment of his musical 表現. When Miles Davis in 1970 changed the 形態／調整 of jazz to come by fusing jazz with 激しく揺する, he too chose Mati 絵s for the covers of the classic albums Bitches Brew and Live-Evil.
- In the beginning of the seventies I made yet another 絵, Zonked, for an album where his then wife Betty Davis were singing on several 跡をつけるs. But when Miles 設立する out that she was fucking Jimi Hendrix he cancelled the 解放（する）. The 絵, however, （機の）カム to use twenty years later on a an album by the 非難する-originators Last Poets.
- Speaking of Jimi Hendrix, we used to 株 the same tailor, and we would spend afternoons dropping 酸性の and trying out new 始める，決めるs of 着せる／賦与するs together. I 現実に was working on a 絵 for a 記録，記録的な／記録する cover to an album that was never finished, where Jimi and Gil Evans were 共同製作. Unfortunately Jimi died during the recordings and it was never 解放（する）d. I finished the 絵 though and it has been 小旅行するing around the world on that 動きやすい Jimi Hendrix 展示.
Mati's 作品 （機の）カム to 表明する the spirit of a whole 世代 of musicians 範囲ing from the late Jerry Garcia to the 平等に late, 広大な／多数の／重要な Eric Dolphy. Wherever there would be soul-searching, astral-travelling and mind-拡大するing 記録，記録的な／記録するs churned out, there would also be cover 絵s by Mati Klarwein. A fact that かもしれない shut him out from the 従来の art 設立.
- My coming across as a painter in that fashion is probably the 推論する／理由 why I don't belong to the history of art today. Neither have I ever worked 慣例的に with galleries or any other 会議 within the 井戸／弁護士席-defined 境界s of the world of art, Mati points out.
On the other 手渡す are his 見解（をとる）s on the values of 絵s far from 従来の. Most of his famous 絵s are scattered around the world, and Mati doesn't know, or care for that 事柄, where they are.
- I have no idea where the one I painted for Bitches Brew is today. But I do know that the 初めの for Abraxas was sold to a 王室の Moroccan. I'm 現実に not 利益／興味d in what so ceremoniously is called 初めのs, to tell you the truth. If somebody wants me to, I'll just do them again. To me it's the image, not the texture that's important.

"Wet Curve", 1981, 85 cm x 85 cm. (Click on the image to open a larger copy in a new window! 224 K)

Another example of his unorthodox 態度 に向かって art is what he calls "改善するd 絵s".
- The idea is somewhat resemblant to what in music is called 見本ing. I buy 存在するing 絵s wherever I come across them and continue working on them によれば my own 願望（する）, he confides and 論証するs a 目録 of his 作品.
The 概念 might seem partly analogous to Andy Warhol's 審査する prints. Warhol who once 明言する／公表するd that Mati was his favourite painter, fraternised in the same circle of socialites as Mati did in New York. And most of the money Mati brought in was from 絵 portraits of rich and famous people and their houses. の中で the people 要求するing his services were Jackie Kennedy, David Niven, Brigitte Bardot, Richard Gere, Leonard Bernstein and Michael Douglas to 指名する but a few.
- I still paint portraits to make money, but I also do it in 交流 for services or things that I want. For example I portrayed the house of my printer and in return he 財政／金融d the entire 版 of my 来たるべき 調書をとる／予約する with poetry and 絵s.
Parked 負かす／撃墜する at the 入り口 is another of his most 最近の 貿易（する）s: a white Mercedes, which he got in return for a portrait of his 隣人, the German photographer Bettina Rheims.
Since the 早期に eighties, however, in the 絵s that neither are "改善するd" nor portraits, there has hardly been any people at all. Instead he has been 絵 Majorcan landscapes, meticulously （手先の）技術d and at times spiced with imaginary 存在s. Or archetypal 人物／姿／数字s that appear either like reminiscences from his geographical travels or from his excursions into his own mind. And this later line of 絵s has 新たにするd the 利益／興味 の中で 確かな musicians, like Jon Hassel, for the dreamlike imagery of Mati Klarwein. Although the 反対するs of his dreams have changed over the years, the dreams are still his most important source of inspiration.
- There was a time when I dreamed of sex, and then I dreamed of 麻薬s. Soon I will be dreaming light, says Mati prophetically.