Details

Provenance:

Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia, acquired directly from the artist.

Descrizione

– Work with the typical symbolic language reminiscent of prehistoric cave paintings from the important 1990s

– From the artist’s studio and on the art market for the first time

– After his expatriation from the GDR in 1980, A.R. Penck was perceived in the West as the father of the “Neue Wilden”, and from 1988 to 2003 he was Professor of Painting at the Düsseldorf Art Academy

– His works can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Hamburger Kunsthalle, among others

Four black stick figures – characteristic of Penck’s style – populate this canvas. Densely packed together, they fill an indeterminate universe, operating in an undefined space on a light background with symbolic signs, geometric bodies in the primary colours blue and red.

The reduced depiction, which is reminiscent of cave paintings, and the simplicity of the signs are immediately apparent to the viewer. Nevertheless, the composition remains open and, depending on the viewer’s background and context, different interpretations of the painting emerge. Penck is fundamentally concerned with the changing relationships of the individual within a social system.

As early as the 1960s, Penck developed his style, characterised by pictogram-like figures and signs, which he calls “Standart”, in an examination of cybernetics. His primary aim was to develop a reading and visual language that could be understood by everyone. Even after his expatriation to the West in 1980, he often returned to the formal language of his early Standart works.

A.R. Penck was born Ralf Winkler in Dresden in 1939. He chose his artist’s name in 1968 in reference to the Ice Age researcher Albrecht Penck, a choice that underlines the references of his pictorial language to archaic cave paintings: “This archaeological recourse has significantly fertilised and influenced my painting.”