"Frank Bowling: Mappa Mundi" presents a comprehensive overview of rare and never-before exhibited large-scale paintings along with other works by the Guyanese-born British painter Frank Bowling. Born in Bartica, British Guyana, in 1934, Bowling left his native country at the age of nineteen, arriving in London in 1953 as part of the momentous wave of Anglophone West Indian and Caribbean populations who migrated to England in the aftermath of World War II. Later he would study painting at The Slade School, University College London, and the Royal College of Art, distinguishing himself with the silver medal for painting (David Hockney received the gold medal) in RCA's 1962 graduating class.

The principal anchor of this exhibition is the monumental and celebrated "map paintings" (1967–1971) that were first shown to acclaim at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1971. For Bowling, whose art is preoccupied with place and history, like those of his Caribbean contemporaries, the poet Derek Walcott and philosopher Edouard Glissant, the use of maps as conceptual objects of painting make for a fitting transactional trope through which to tackle the idea of geography and narrative. Maps and mapping present not only an exploratory metaphor through which to mirror the physical weight of painting; they also project absorbing, metaphysical and protean domains.

Standing before the imposing presence of Bowling's immense, delicately worked, and tactile paintings – with their mists of muted colors, scumbled fiery substrates and volcanic surfaces – is to be emplaced; to be simultaneously grounded in a vast oceanic presence and anthropocentric field in which the beholder is able to generate new meanings of landscape and space. References to the natural world evoke reflections on the vernacular and the post-industrial, the mythical and the classical, the literary and the spatial. These references echo and limn imagery from the marsh flats of colonial Bartica in British Guyana, where he was born and raised, to the terrifying undertow of the Caribbean Sea that he sailed to escape the claustrophobia of island existence; from the ancient shores of River Thames, where he found a home and hearth in London (the capital of empire), to the gritty, unforgiving urban miscellany of New York, where he honed his artistic voice.

"Mappa Mundi" is thus an appropriate term to describe the absorptive presence of Bowling's monumental paintings. As when first made, today these paintings remain unparalleled pictures of astonishing physical power and stunning visual drama. Rarely has the experience of painting conveyed the feeling of such plenitude and mystery, of being both submerged and enveloped, swept away and invaginated; of being in one’s own body and out of this world.

"Frank Bowling: Mappa Mundi" is curated by Okwui Enwezor with Anna Schneider and organized by Haus der Kunst.

Frank Bowling Middle Passage 1970 Acrylic on canvas 321 x 281 cm Courtesy the Artist © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Middle Passage 1970 Acrylic on canvas 321 x 281 cm Courtesy the Artist © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Polish Rebecca, 1971 Acrylic on canvas 277 x 359 cm 109 1/8 x 141 3/8 in Courtesy of Private Collection © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Polish Rebecca, 1971 Acrylic on canvas 277 x 359 cm 109 1/8 x 141 3/8 in Courtesy of Private Collection © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Bartica 1968-69 Acrylic on canvas 284 x 349.5 cm Courtesy the Artist and Hales Gallery © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Bartica 1968-69 Acrylic on canvas 284 x 349.5 cm Courtesy the Artist and Hales Gallery © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Barticaflats, 1986 Acrylic on canvas 176.5 x 287 cm 69 1/2 x 113 in Courtesy of Frank Bowling and Hales London, New York © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Barticaflats, 1986 Acrylic on canvas 176.5 x 287 cm 69 1/2 x 113 in Courtesy of Frank Bowling and Hales London, New York © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling, Dog Daze, 1971, Hales Gallery New York © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2016
Frank Bowling, Dog Daze, 1971, Hales Gallery New York © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2016
Frank Bowling Philoctetes' Bow 1987. Acryl auf Leinwand. 183 x 360 cm. Courtesy the Artist and Hales Gallery © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Philoctetes' Bow 1987. Acryl auf Leinwand. 183 x 360 cm. Courtesy the Artist and Hales Gallery © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Moby Dick, 1981 Acrylic on canvas 250.5 x 189 cm 98 5/8 x 74 3/8 in Courtesy of Frank Bowling and Hales London, New York © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Moby Dick, 1981 Acrylic on canvas 250.5 x 189 cm 98 5/8 x 74 3/8 in Courtesy of Frank Bowling and Hales London, New York © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Schlesingerblue, 1968 Acrylic on canvas 114 x 221 cm 44 7/8 x 87 1/8 in Courtesy of Frank Bowling and Hales London, New York © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Schlesingerblue, 1968 Acrylic on canvas 114 x 221 cm 44 7/8 x 87 1/8 in Courtesy of Frank Bowling and Hales London, New York © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling False Start, 1968 Acrylic on canvas 223 x 705 cm 87 3/4 x 277 1/2 in Courtesy of Frank Bowling and Hales London, New York © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling False Start, 1968 Acrylic on canvas 223 x 705 cm 87 3/4 x 277 1/2 in Courtesy of Frank Bowling and Hales London, New York © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Rachel III Acrylic on canvas 175.5 x 82.5 cm 69 1/8 x 32 1/2 in Courtesy of Frank Bowling and Rachel Scott © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Rachel III Acrylic on canvas 175.5 x 82.5 cm 69 1/8 x 32 1/2 in Courtesy of Frank Bowling and Rachel Scott © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling Karter's Choice, 1972 Acrylic and spray paint on canvas 251.5 x 160 cm 99 x 63 in Zang Collection, London
Frank Bowling Karter's Choice, 1972 Acrylic and spray paint on canvas 251.5 x 160 cm 99 x 63 in Zang Collection, London
Frank Bowling South America Squared, 1967 Acrylic on canvas 243 x 274 cm 95 5/8 x 107 7/8 in Rennie Collection, Vancouver © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
Frank Bowling South America Squared, 1967 Acrylic on canvas 243 x 274 cm 95 5/8 x 107 7/8 in Rennie Collection, Vancouver © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017