Post-modern and contemporary
painting in Germany
Berlin Wall, 1989, marking the end of the Cold War
Annihilation of Modern Art in Nazi Germany 1933- 45
(left) Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (German Expressionist,1880-1938) Girl Under a Japanese
Umbrella, 1906; (right) Emil Nolde (German Expressionist, 1867-1956), Excited People,
1910; (below) Degenerate Art Exhibition, Munich, 1937
Composition with Blue, 1926
Piet Mondrian, oil, 24 in. sq.
“Degenerate Art”
The poster of the Degenerate Music
exhibition (1938). Jewish Composers and
Jazz/Swing musicians were, for instance,
accused by the Nazis of producing
"degenerated music"...
Marc Chagall, Purim, 191618, oil, 20 x 28 in, exhibited in
Nazi Degenerate Art Exhibition
“Good German Art” – Socialist Realism (only)
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986), (left) Fat Chair, 1964
(right) Felt Suit, 1970; (center) Joseph Beuys the artist:
"The whole process of living is my creative act."
First German artist after WW II to
achieve international fame based
on exploration of his German identity
Joseph Beuys, How to Explain Paintings to a Dead Hare, performance on Nov. 26,
1965. Three hours talking about pictures in in the Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf. The
hare was one of Beuys’ totemic animals. Artist’s face was coated with honey and gold
leaf and one of his shoes had an iron heel: symbolic materials. Artist shaman
Joseph Beuys, The Pack (2 views), 1969. Volkswagen bus with twenty-four wooden
sleds, each with felt, flashlight, fat and stamped with brown oil paint
The Dionysian versus
the Apollonian
Joseph Beuys, I Like America and America Likes Me, performance, “Action,” René Block
Gallery, NYC, May, 1974
Beuys, Honey Pump at the Workplace for Documenta, 1977, electric motors pumped
honey through a gigantic assemblage of pipes in the stairwell of the museum,
symbolizing the circulation of life and flowing energy.
(left) Beuys lecturing in New York, 1974, about the social revolution to be led by artists
(everyone); (right) Beuys, Action Piece, 26-6 February 1972; presented as part of
exhibition held at the Tate Gallery February - March 1972. Drawings are acts of mind:
mapping mental processes toward transformative personal and social consciousness.
"Man is only truly alive when he realizes he is a creative, artistic being.“
Beuys inaugurating 7000 Oaks at Documenta 7, Kassel, Germany, 1982. Project
completed after artist’s death; the last tree was planted by his son at the opening of
Documenta 8 in 1987
Beuys was a founding member of the Green Party
Beuys’ 7000 Oak project extended by the Dia Foundation in 1996. Trees (of several
kinds) planted on West 22nd Street, each paired with a basalt stone column
NYC students planting trees:
“Social Sculpture”
Anselm Kiefer (German b. 1945), Occupations, one in photographic series, 1969 (artist
is 24); (right) Kiefer, Heroic Symbols, 1969 watercolor and gouache on paper, left sheet:
6 in. sq., right sheet: 22 x 16 in.
Taken in Italy and France
This small self-portrait of the artist giving the
Nazi salute is pasted on the same sheet as
the watercolor of the sky, which, according to
the artist, has been wounded by shots.
Anselm Kiefer The Milky Way, 1985-87
Emulsion paint, oil, acrylic, shellac on canvas with applied wires and lead, 12ft 6 in H
Gotterdammerung
Anselm Kiefer, Inner Room, 1981
with (left) source photo of Nazi meeting room, Albert Speer architect
Kiefer, Your Golden Hair, Margarete, 1981, oil, emulsion, and straw on canvas, 51 x 67”
Anselm Kiefer Twilight of the West [Abendland] 1989, lead sheet, synthetic polymer
paint, ash, plaster, cement, earth, varnish on canvas and wood, 13 feet H
Gotterdammerung
Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg, Living With Pop, 1963: a performance of
“Capitalist Realism”: Düsseldorf artists mounted an installation of objects in a
local department store and installed themselves with the commodities as a
demonstration of "Capitalist Realism."
To what situations for artists does "Capitalist Realism" respond?
(left) Richter and Sigmar Polke, 1965, from Richter/Polke exhibition catalogue
(right) Richter, 1998, from Gerhard Richter: 40 Years of Painting exhibition cat.
Gerhard Richter (b. Dresden, 1932), Uncle Rudi [Nazi officer], 1965, oil on canvas
(right) Administrative Building, 1964, Oil on canvas, 38 1/4 x 59 “
photo sources – family snapshot and encyclopedia sources
See Jason Gaiger, “Post-conceptual painting: Gerhard Richter’s extended leave-taking”
Uncle Rudi “very stupid”
killed after a few days at war.
“One has to believe in what one is doing, one has
to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting.
Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point
of believing that one might change human beings
through painting. But if one lacks this passionate
commitment there is nothing left to do. Then it is
best to leave it alone. For basically painting is total
idiocy.”
- Richter
Richter, Aunt Marianne, oil on canvas, 1965, 47 x 51 in
from a photograph of Richter as a baby with Aunt Marianne, the sister of Uncle Rudi and
Richter’s mother. She was sent to a mental institution when she was 18, where Nazi
doctors euthanized her.
“Whenever I behaved badly I was told you will become like crazy Marianne.”
“Suddenly, I saw it (the photograph) in a new way, as a picture that offered me a new
view, free of all the conventional criteria I had always associated with art. It had no style,
no composition, no judgment. It freed me from personal experience.”
- Richter
Richter, Phantom Interceptors, 1964, oil on canvas, 55" x 6' 3“
(right) Alpha Romeo (With Text), 1965, oil on canvas, 60 x 59”
Richter, Eight Student Nurses, 1966, oil on canvas, 8 paintings each c. 36 x 27 in
Disjunction of signified and signifier
Compare Richter, Eight Student Nurses, 1966, with (left) Andy Warhol, Jackie: The
Week That Was, 1963
Grisaille – grey, “like no other color is
suitable for illustrating nothing”
- Richter
Richter, October 18, 1977: Baader-Meinhof series, Confrontation 1 and 2, 1988
oil on canvas, all 45” H. Series based on media photographs of members of the terrorist
Red Army Faction: their arrest, imprisonment and death.
October, 1977, Protesters in Stuttgart at funeral of Andreas Baader
Final paintings in Richter’s October 18, 1977
Baader-Meinhof series titled Tote 1, 2, and 3
(left) Richter, Abstract Painting, 1976, oil on canvas, 26 x 23 in.
“After the gray paintings, after the dogma of ‘fundamental painting’ whose purist and
moralizing aspects fascinated me to a degree bordering on self-denial, all I could do was
start all over again. This was the beginning of the first color sketches.”
Compare: Rauschenberg, Factum I & II, 1957
(left) Richter, Iceberg in Fog, 1982, oil on canvas, 27 x 39 in
compare (right) Caspar David Friedrich (German Romanticism, 1774-1840)
(top) Monk by the Sea (1809) and (bottom) Polar Sea (1823)
Richter, Untitled, 1987, oil on canvas, 118” square
Richter, Betty, 1988, oil on canvas, 40 x 23“
compare (right) Untitled, 1987
“Painting is the form of the picture, you might say. The picture is the depiction, and
painting is the technique for shattering it.”
Sigmar Polke (German, b. 1941), Modern Art, 1968
(right) Polke, Lovers II, 1965, oil and enamel on canvas, 6 ft 3 in x 55 in
Capitalist Realism (German Pop)
Lichtenstein, cover of
Newsweek, 1966
Ben-Day dots
Sigmar Polke, Bunnies, 1966, acrylic on
linen, 58 x 39” Simulation of Raster dots
(commercial 4-color printing)
Warhol, "Marilyn," 1964
Sigmar Polke, Alice in Wonderland, 1971, mixed media on fabric strips, 10ft 6” x 8ft 6”
private collection, Cologne
Polke, from Watchtower series, 1984, synthetic polymers on various fabrics
Berlin Wall, August 13, 1961, the GDR began under the leadership of Erich Honecker
to block off East Berlin and the GDR from West Berlin by means of barbed wire and
antitank obstacles. Construction crews replaced the provisional barriers by a solid wall.
Polke, The Spirits That Lend Strength Are Invisible III (Nickel), 1988, nickel and artificial
resin on canvas, 157in. x 118 in. Collection SFMOMA
Sigmar Polke, Mrs. Autumn and Her Two Daughters, 1991, artificial resin and acrylic on
synthetic fabric, 9ft 10in x 16ft 5in
Georg Baselitz (Hans-Georg Kern, b. Dresden, Germany,1938)
The New Type, 1966, woodcut, 42 x 34 in
compare (center below) Emil Nolde, The Prophet, 1912, woodcut;
(right) Erich Heckel (German, 1883–1970) Woman, 1914, woodcut
1914
German Expressionism
1966 Neo-Expressionism
1912
Baselitz, The Gleaner, oil and tempera on
canvas, 130 x 98 in, 1978
Van Gogh, The Gleaner
ink drawing, 1885
Baselitz, Lazarus, 1984
Baselitz with Neo-Expressionist (Neo-Primitivist) sculpture, Man (1980s) and source in
Sudanese traditional sculpture
(right) Kirchner (German Expressionist), Dancer, 1914
A.R. Penck, (right) Penck, Standart, 1971
(left) The Work Goes On, 1982, woodcut
Jörg Immendorff (b. 1941 Silesia, East Germany), Can one change anything with
these?, 1972, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 31 ½ in
Joseph Beuys, How to
Explain Pictures to a Dead
Hare, 1965, Dusseldorf.
Immendorff’s teacher
Jörg Immendorff, Café Deutschland I, 1978,
oil on canvas, 280 x 320 cm
Compare Expressionism of Max Beckmann (left), Night, 1917-18
with Neo-Expressionism of Immendorff, Café Deutschland I, 1978
What (form and content) do they have in common?
Immendorf, Café Deutschland IV, 1978, oil on canvas, 111 x 130 in.
Dystopia
Blade Runner, film still, 1982
Immendorff, Café Deutschland – Cafeprobe, 1980
synthetic resin on canvas, 280 x 350 cm
Jörg Immendorff, Café Deutschland, 1984, oil, 285cmH
Leipzig group, 2006: from left: Tilo Baumgärtel (b.1972), Christoph Ruckhärberle (b.
1972), Martin Kobe (b.1973), Matthias Weischer (b.1973), and David Schnell (b.1971)
The New York Times 2006: "Art Stars of the Decade"
"If you want to talk of an advantage, you can say it [the “Iron Curtain”] allowed us to
continue in the tradition of Cranach and Beckmann. It protected the art against the
influence of Joseph Beuys.“
- Leipzig AFA professor Arno Rink
The New York Times 2006: "Art Stars of the Decade"
The first generation of artists to grow up in the reunified Germany
http://www.leeds.gov.uk/artgallery/art_docs/events_saat.pdf
Check out this guide for the 2006 Triumph of Painting exhibition
Leeds City Gallery, England
all by Saachi Gallery, London, painters
Max Beckmann (German, 1884-1950), Departure, 1932
Leipzig native son
Beckmann at MoMA
NYC, 1947, in front
of Departure
Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472-1553), The Golden Age, 16th Century
Progenitor of Leipzig tradition in painting
Neo Rauch (b. 1960, Leipzig, Germany, lives and works in Leipzig)
shown (2006) in studio before one of his paintings.
Rauch was trained in communist social realism
Neo Rauch, Das Neue (The New), 2003
"It is important to create a definite environment or stage on which things can happen.
For me, the function of painting as I understand it is to work with myths. I try to create a
widespread system where impulses are trapped. With an analytic understanding, you
can't grasp it."
Giorgio di Chirico,
(Italian 1888-1978)
Philosopher’s Conquest,
1913 (compare)
(right) Neo Rauch, Diktat, 2004
(left top) Balthus (French, 1908–2001) The Mountain, 1937, oil on canvas, 98 x 144 in
(left below) René Magritte (Belgian, 1898-1967), The Menaced Assassin, 1926
Matthias Weischer, Living Room, 2003, Oil on Canvas, 170 x 190cm
Tilo Baumgaertel, Hydroplane, oil on linen, 200 x 300 cm, 2002
Christoph Ruckhäberle (Germany, b.1972), Lake at
Sunset, 2004, oil on canvas, 279 x 381cm
E.L. Kirchner, 1909
Cézanne, 1876
“Cribbed from all the best bits of art history…” - Saatchi Gallery publicist
Martin Kobe, Untitled, 2003, Acrylic on canvas, 37 5/8 x 53 1/8 in.
Tim Eitel, (left) Bomber Jacket, 2003
(right) Film, 2003
2005 Exhibitions of Leipzig painters have titles such as “Life after Death,” and “Cold Hearts”
Russian émigrés
Komar & Melamid, Catalogue of Super Objects, 1977
“SOTS ART” (Moscow Conceptual Art / Apartment Art)
Khaasha is a headband with
a floral crest and a curved
wire that extends a small cup
to the wearer's nose. Into
this "special, medium-sized
chalice" one puts "a small
piece of your love's skin,
flower petals, or whatever you
prefer."
Charog 15, a grill fitting
in front of the face to "protect
the purity of your thoughts."
Vitaly Komar (b. Moscow,1943) and Alex Melamid (b. Moscow,1945)
(left) Stalin and the Muses, 1981-2, oil on canvas, 6x7ft 7in.
(right) Double Self-Portrait as Young Pioneers, 1982-83, oil on canvas, 72 x 50 in.
(from Nostalgic Socialist Realism series).
(conceptual painting, yes?)
Komar & Melamid, The Origin of Socialist Realism (from Nostalgic Socialist Realism
series), 72” x 48”, tempera and oil on canvas, 1982-83
Karp Trokhimenko (1885-1975), Stalin as an Organizer of the October Revolution,
1940s, oil on canvas, 85 x 117 cm. (Socialist Realism)
Komar & Melamid, America's Most Wanted Painting, 1993
Statistical charts from Komar & Melamid’s survey for Most Wanted Painting
published in The Nation magazine
Ilya Kabakov (Russian, b. 1933)
The Man Who Flew into Space
From His Apartment, from “Ten
Characters,” 1981-8, Installation:
poster panels, furniture, clothing,
catapult household objects, wooden
plank, scroll, 8 x 8 x 12 ft
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, The Palace of Projects, a building devoted to the housing of
sixty-five "projects" conceived by the artists between 1995-98
Kabakov, Palace of Projects, Project #1: How Can One Change Oneself?
Kabakov, Palace of Projects, Project #15, To Escape From Oneself
Nelson Mandela and F.W. De Klerk were international symbols of apartheid. As a leader
of the African National Congress and a participant in the struggle to overthrow apartheid,
Mandela spent more than 25 years as a political prisoner. When De Klerk assumed the
presidency of South Africa in September 1989, he began to change the system of
apartheid and abolish discriminatory laws.
On February 11, 1990, De Klerk released Mandela from prison.
F.W. De Klerk and Nelson Mandela
William Kentridge (South Africa,1955), Felix in Exile, 1994, video with sound, 00:08:43,
Edition of 10, dimensions vary with installation
Hand-drawn animated films that focus on apartheid- and post-apartheid South
Africa through two fictive white characters, the pensive Felix Teitlebaum and the
aggressive industrialist Soho Eckstein, the artist’s alter egos
Kentridge, History of the Main Complaint, 1996, drawing in chalk and charcoal, still from
video with sound, 00:05:50, edition of 10, dimensions vary with installation
Kentridge, Drawing for Stereoscope, "Untitled," 1998-99, charcoal, pastel,
and colored pencil on paper, 47 1/4 x 63"
William Kentridge (South African, born 1955), Casspirs Full of Love,
1989–2000, drypoint; 65 1/2 x 38 3/8 in.
The Casspir, a landmine protected
personal vehicle, was ubiquitous
during the days of apartheid in South
Africa. It was commonly used in the
townships for crowd and riot control.
Marlene Dumas (South African, 1953) , The Painter, 1994, oil on canvas, 79 in. H
Dumas,
“I treat all colors as
equally strange."
Marlene Dumas, Mixed Blood, 1996, ink, gouache, and synthetic polymer paint on paper
Beaubourg, Paris
Dumas, Chlorosis (Love sick), 1994, ink, gouache, and synthetic polymer paint on paper,
each sheet 26 x 19 ½,“ MoMA NYC
Dumas, Blindfolded, 2005, ink on paper, Africa ReMix Exhibition, Paris
Dumas, Passion, 1994, gouache and ink on paper, 61 x 49cm
Dumas, Head Rest, watercolor on paper, 2004
compare: Egon Schiele (Austrian, 1890-1918), Girl with Black Hair, 1911, watercolor and
pencil on paper, 22 1/8 x 14 1/2"
Tiananmen Square, Beijing
April 15 – June 4 1989
Students demanding dialogue
with government
Student camp Tiananmen Square
Contemporary Painting: China
• The People's Republic of China was established on
October 1, 1949
• The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China (1966
-1976) Socialist Realism imposed
• After the death of Mao (1976) and the rise of Deng
Xiaoping the art universities and the art academies,
closed during the Cultural Revolution, reopened in the
their first graduates came out in the early 80s. These
artists believed they had creative freedom until the
repressions of 1989. The market for their art has been
international, outside of China, until recently.
"The People's Liberation Army of China is a grand school of Mao Tse-tung Thought“
Chinese Socialist Realism during the Cultural Revolution (1966 -1976)
Jacques Louis-David (French Neo-Classicist, 1748-1825), Coronation of Napoleon and
Josephine, 2 December 1804, oil on canvas, 1805-7. Sources for totalitarian Socialist
Realisms go back to French revolutionary painting: 1789 through Empire of Napoleon I.
Boris Vladimirski, Roses for Stalin, 1949
Soviet socialist realism (left) is source for
Chinese socialist realism (right)
To carry the Great Revolution of
Proletarian Culture out to the End, 1972
Vasili Ivanov, Vladimir Lenin, c.1950
Work Hard for Speeding Up the Modernization
Of Agricultural Machinery, 1972
Quotations of Mao,1967
Socialist Realism during
The Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution in
China, 1966-1976
Work Hard to Realize the Fourth Five
Year Plan of National Economy, 1972
Contemporary Painting in China
Post-1989 / “Post-Ideological”
Capitalist miracle and communist government
Tiananmen Square, Beijing, 1989
Lang Xingwei, Rabbit’s Testimony, 1995
Liu Dahong (b. China 1962) Four Seasons: LR: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, 1991,
Oil on canvas, 70 x 40 cm
Liu Dahong, More in New Shanghai, oil, 2002 Shanghai Biennale
Liu Dahong, Highlighting
Mosaic of Shanghai, 2002
oil on canvas, 120 x 35 cm
Shanghai Bienniale, 2004
Dahong, Tibetan Beauty Comes to Central China
oil on canvas, 2005
Zhang Xiaogang (b. 1958. Lives in Beijing),
Bloodline, The Big Family No. 2, 1995
Sichuan school
“We live in a big family, the first thing we learn is how to shut ourselves up in a secret
small cell and pretend to keep step with all the other members of the Family.”
Zhang Xiaogang
Bloodline, Comrade #120, 1998
Highest price
paid for a
Chinese
contemporary
painting
$979,200 at
Sotheby’s (2006)
Small stain on
part of the portrait
Suggests surface
damage of an old
photograph or mask.
Post-Maoist “individualism”
in question
Zhang Xiaogang, Amnesia and Anamnesis
Shanghai Biennale, 2004
"On the surface the faces in these portraits appear as calm as still water, but underneath there is great
emotional turbulence. Within this state of conflict the propagation of obscure and ambiguous destinies
is carried on from generation to generation."
Fang Lijun (Chinese, b. 1963) Series 2 No 2, 1991-1992, oil on canvas, 6 ½ ft square
“Cynical Social Realism”
Fang Lijun, Series 2 No. 6, 1991-1992, oil on canvas, 6 ½ ft square
Fang Lijun, Series 2 No. 7, 1991-1992, oil on canvas, 6 ½ ft square
Fang Lijun, Untitled, Installation View, woodcut, 2002
Yue Minjun (China b. 1962), Red No. 1, 1999, oil, 16 x 12 in
(right) Yue Minjun in his studio
Yue Minjun Farmer, 1997, oil on canvas,59 in H
The Laughing Proud of Gleeful Fools #2, 29 x 22.5 inches, silkscreen, 17 x 30 in, 1999
Wenda Gu
studied under the classical
landscape painting
master Lu Yanshao
His grandfather was a wellknown filmmaker
Wenda Gu (China, b. 1956, has lived in NYC since 1987), United Nations
Project, Exterior of temple made with human hair of all races, various siterelated versions were exhibited in cosmopolitan centers all over the world
between 1993-2002
Wenda Gu, United Nations: Babel of the Millennium, 1999 installation at SFMoMA, an
entirely human-hair made tower of nonsensical pseudo-Chinese, English, Hindi, Arabic
and synthesized English-Chinese, 75 feet high x 34 feet across
Xu Bing (China, b. 1955) A Book from the Sky
National Gallery of Canada, 1998
Prague installation
Gallery visitors in Beijing attempt to
read the nonsense characters
on the printed scrolls of A Book from
the Sky.
Printing blocks for A Book from the Sky
Xu Bing in his studio hand carving the characters for A Book from the Sky.
An original printing block for
A Book from the Sky.
Xu Bing A Case Study of Transference, Two
live breeding pigs in an enclosed exhibition
space with unreadable characters in English
and Chinese. Performance and video 1994-5
Artist writing “English”
Words on the pig.
Case Study for Transference #1,
performed at the Han Mo Art Center,
Beijing in 1994
Post-Colonial Post-Modern painting
Shahzia Sikander (b. Lahore, Pakistan, 1969) , Venice Biennale 2005, SpiNN, 2003
Installation: DVD large screen projection
Sikander in Venice with
SpiNN, 2005
“This is what interests me as an artist: how you can create work
that somehow transcends place and time.”
Sikander, What is Under the Blouse? What is Under the Dress?, 1997, vegetable color,
dry pigment, watercolor, and tea on hand-prepared wasli paper, 9 ¼ x 5 in.
Sikander in NYC studio, 2001
(left) Pre-Mogul (Muslim dynasty of Mongol origin that ruled much of India 1526-1857)
miniature painting of divine Krishna and Radha, 10th book of Bhagavata Purana (Hindu)
(center) The Adventures of Hamza, commissioned by Mughal emperor Akbar c.1557
(right) Shahzia Sikander, Intimacy, 2001, watercolor, dry pigment, vegetable color, tea,
and ink on hand-prepared wasli paper, 11 x 8 ½ in.
(right) Rajput (Hindu) miniature painting of the Army of Tamerlane
storming the walls of the Rajput city of Bhatnair in 1398
British Rule in India between 1776-1947 A.D). In 1947 independent (Islamic) state of
Pakistan gained independence from (Hindu) India
The Pre-Colonial Indian Subcontinent, 1000-1500
Sikander, Installation at the Renaissance Society, U of Chicago, 1998
Shahzia Sikander, To Desire, 2004 Ink and gouache on paper, from series created in
response to a collection of traditional paintings at the San Diego Museum of Art
(compare right) Mythical Peacock with a Woman's Head, ca. 1750, Deccani school,
Hyderabad, opaque watercolor and gold on paper
Source
Shahzia Sikander, To Define, 2004, ink and gouache on paper
(compare right) The Holiest Shrines of Islam: Mecca and Medina (Dala'il Al-Khayrat), ca.
1660, Golconda, opaque watercolor and gold on paper
source
Sikander, Pleasure Pillars, 2001, watercolor, dry pigment, vegetable color, tea, and ink
on hand-prepared wasli paper, 12 x 10 in.