Baselitz, Lüpertz, Penck & Co.
Zeichnerische Positionen aus der Sammlung Ludwig / Positions in Drawing from the Ludwig Collection
28 June to 6 September 2009
Georg Baselitz, Markus Lüpertz and A. R. Penck are unarguably some of the most important protagonists of painting in Germany. In the last decades their artistic worlds have characterised and continue to characterise the visual arts far beyond the borders of Germany. Peter and Irene Ludwig accumulated early works on paper from all three artists for their collection that allow viewers to follow the development enabling Baselitz, Lüpertz and Penck to discover their themes and forms.
At the close of the 1950s Baselitz turned his back on gestural forms to address his gaze to figurative art. The phase is characterised by people and individual parts of the human body with almost organic appearances. It closes with the heroes and 'New Types', achieving a programmatic zenith with the 'Großen Freunden' (Big Friends). In the late 1960s Baselitz began to rotate his pictorial motifs. The drawings clarify this process, in particular with the first turned objects from the 'Wald auf dem Kopf' (Wood upside down).
With the dithyramb in 1964 Markus Lüpertz introduced a form to art that because of its decidedly physical effect arouses representational associations but cannot however be designated as being representational. His drawings point the way. Further groups clarify the development of his well known pictorial objects. Coats, helmets, snails, dragons and fish populate the works on paper, the 'style images' are denoted by their own innate form.
The development of the A. R. Penck drawing system is also documented by the array of drawings selected from the Ludwig Collection. Already with early system paintings Penck showed his interest in drawing as a method of communicating information. From 1968 he attempted to develop a drawing system in the 'Standart' images that corresponded to scientific systems in relation to its unambiguity, combining signal character with a call to action in the way of traffic signs. With his move to West Germany in 1980 his images gained in hindsight political dimensions.
The exhibition in the Kleines Schloss brought into being in cooperation with the Ludwig Forum for International Art and the Ludwig Foundation in Aachen affords for the first time a view of the resources of international applied art from the Ludwig Collection taken from Eastern and Western Europe as well as from Asia and Cuba.
Jim Rakete
1/8 sec. – Vertraute Fremde / Familiar Strangers
18 January to 10 May 2009
"An eighth of a second seems to me to be the blink of the eye of classical photography," says Jim Rakete, one of the most important of German photographers. He shoots his portraits with a plate camera, a technique taken from the dawning era of photography. The photographer from Berlin allows a glimpse into the worlds of film and music, art and dancing, literature and politics.
'Familiar Strangers' show images the names of which read like a who's-who of public life. For Rakete it is important that his protagonists are devoid of make-up in order to capture them as real people. Heino Ferch relaxes with a cup of coffee, Christiane Paul in the last weeks of pregnancy at a busy railway station, and Helmut Schmidt with his mandatory cigarette. The artist Jörg Immendorff takes a whiff of a clove with a melancholy gesture.
The music scene that was significantly defined by Jim Rakete as a manager is not only represented by Nena and Ulla Meinecke but also by Silbermond and Wir sind Helden. Some of the rare colour photographs showing Nadja Auermann and Polina Semionova illuminate this area of his work. Rakete's concealed preference for rabbits is not only seen on the back of the volume of photography bearing the same title.
Ludwig Galerie Schloss Oberhausen displays around 130 of these impressive portraits. The images represent a quick run through of the decisive people from various walks of life (music, the cinema, politics, sport and art) with a slowly operating plate camera, according to Jim Rakete. A homage to silver photography was the result, the era of which is finally coming to a close. In order to give an impression of the chaste and unadorned atmosphere of work required for this type of photography, the exhibition features a studio situation showing the tried-and-true plate camera, the crumpled background taken from some of the photos and some original photographic plates.
The film portrait of the artist Jim Rakete by Claudia Müller focuses on the photographer in detail. She accompanied him throughout 2007 for MA VIE and recorded during five days of shooting just how long an eighth of a second really can be.
Figuren und Ikonen / Figures and Icons
Prints from Munch to Kirchner and from Picasso to Warhol
27 September 2008 to 4 January 2009
The impression of man has undergone an intense metamorphosis since the Modern Movement. Avante-garde artists grappled with innovative forms of representation and explore new paths. The exhibition illuminates this phenomenon. Beginning with Edvard Munch's early Madonna masterpiece, the arc is spanned across to the pop icons of Andy Warhol.
The dancing figures of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner develop their own irregularly convoluted rhythms, and the figures of Brücke artists such as Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, Pechstein and Müller differentiate forms of representation. Nolde, Kandinsky, Dix and Beckmann similarly lead viewers into a transformed conception of man, as do the lascivious nudes of Egon Schiele.
Picasso creates new forms of the ideal of man in leaps and bounds, ranging from the Simple Feast and the harlequins to his work dictated by the prismatic influence of Cubism and the experimental white line prints. Various portraits of his partners in life allow a glimpse into the sphere of his private relationships.
The pop icons of Andy Warhol mark a stylistic termination in the representation of man during the 20th century. In addition to tickets, flowers and cows the figure itself dominates as an object of art worthy of view. Warhol has had a crucial influence on how we perceive icons of the screen such as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda.
With partly large-format colour prints, proofs and one-offs the exhibition documents the transformation of the figure to become an icon. The Ludwig Galerie displays the representation of man in the 20th century over three storeys.
Baselitz, Lüpertz, Penck & Co. - Positions in Drawing from the Ludwig Collection
Baselitz, Lüpertz, Penck & Co.
Zeichnerische Positionen aus der Sammlung Ludwig / Positions in Drawing from the Ludwig Collection
28 June to 6 September 2009
Georg Baselitz, Markus Lüpertz and A. R. Penck are unarguably some of the most important protagonists of painting in Germany. In the last decades their artistic worlds have characterised and continue to characterise the visual arts far beyond the borders of Germany. Peter and Irene Ludwig accumulated early works on paper from all three artists for their collection that allow viewers to follow the development enabling Baselitz, Lüpertz and Penck to discover their themes and forms.
At the close of the 1950s Baselitz turned his back on gestural forms to address his gaze to figurative art. The phase is characterised by people and individual parts of the human body with almost organic appearances. It closes with the heroes and 'New Types', achieving a programmatic zenith with the 'Großen Freunden' (Big Friends). In the late 1960s Baselitz began to rotate his pictorial motifs. The drawings clarify this process, in particular with the first turned objects from the 'Wald auf dem Kopf' (Wood upside down).
With the dithyramb in 1964 Markus Lüpertz introduced a form to art that because of its decidedly physical effect arouses representational associations but cannot however be designated as being representational. His drawings point the way. Further groups clarify the development of his well known pictorial objects. Coats, helmets, snails, dragons and fish populate the works on paper, the 'style images' are denoted by their own innate form.
The development of the A. R. Penck drawing system is also documented by the array of drawings selected from the Ludwig Collection. Already with early system paintings Penck showed his interest in drawing as a method of communicating information. From 1968 he attempted to develop a drawing system in the 'Standart' images that corresponded to scientific systems in relation to its unambiguity, combining signal character with a call to action in the way of traffic signs. With his move to West Germany in 1980 his images gained in hindsight political dimensions.
The exhibition in the Kleines Schloss brought into being in cooperation with the Ludwig Forum for International Art and the Ludwig Foundation in Aachen affords for the first time a view of the resources of international applied art from the Ludwig Collection taken from Eastern and Western Europe as well as from Asia and Cuba.
Jim Rakete 1/8 sec. - Familiar Strangers
Jim Rakete
1/8 sec. – Vertraute Fremde / Familiar Strangers
18 January to 10 May 2009
"An eighth of a second seems to me to be the blink of the eye of classical photography," says Jim Rakete, one of the most important of German photographers. He shoots his portraits with a plate camera, a technique taken from the dawning era of photography. The photographer from Berlin allows a glimpse into the worlds of film and music, art and dancing, literature and politics.
'Familiar Strangers' show images the names of which read like a who's-who of public life. For Rakete it is important that his protagonists are devoid of make-up in order to capture them as real people. Heino Ferch relaxes with a cup of coffee, Christiane Paul in the last weeks of pregnancy at a busy railway station, and Helmut Schmidt with his mandatory cigarette. The artist Jörg Immendorff takes a whiff of a clove with a melancholy gesture.
The music scene that was significantly defined by Jim Rakete as a manager is not only represented by Nena and Ulla Meinecke but also by Silbermond and Wir sind Helden. Some of the rare colour photographs showing Nadja Auermann and Polina Semionova illuminate this area of his work. Rakete's concealed preference for rabbits is not only seen on the back of the volume of photography bearing the same title.
Ludwig Galerie Schloss Oberhausen displays around 130 of these impressive portraits. The images represent a quick run through of the decisive people from various walks of life (music, the cinema, politics, sport and art) with a slowly operating plate camera, according to Jim Rakete. A homage to silver photography was the result, the era of which is finally coming to a close. In order to give an impression of the chaste and unadorned atmosphere of work required for this type of photography, the exhibition features a studio situation showing the tried-and-true plate camera, the crumpled background taken from some of the photos and some original photographic plates.
The film portrait of the artist Jim Rakete by Claudia Müller focuses on the photographer in detail. She accompanied him throughout 2007 for MA VIE and recorded during five days of shooting just how long an eighth of a second really can be.
Figures and Icons - Prints from Munch to Kirchner and from Picasso to Warhol
Figuren und Ikonen / Figures and Icons
Prints from Munch to Kirchner and from Picasso to Warhol
27 September 2008 to 4 January 2009
The impression of man has undergone an intense metamorphosis since the Modern Movement. Avante-garde artists grappled with innovative forms of representation and explore new paths. The exhibition illuminates this phenomenon. Beginning with Edvard Munch's early Madonna masterpiece, the arc is spanned across to the pop icons of Andy Warhol.
The dancing figures of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner develop their own irregularly convoluted rhythms, and the figures of Brücke artists such as Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, Pechstein and Müller differentiate forms of representation. Nolde, Kandinsky, Dix and Beckmann similarly lead viewers into a transformed conception of man, as do the lascivious nudes of Egon Schiele.
Picasso creates new forms of the ideal of man in leaps and bounds, ranging from the Simple Feast and the harlequins to his work dictated by the prismatic influence of Cubism and the experimental white line prints. Various portraits of his partners in life allow a glimpse into the sphere of his private relationships.
The pop icons of Andy Warhol mark a stylistic termination in the representation of man during the 20th century. In addition to tickets, flowers and cows the figure itself dominates as an object of art worthy of view. Warhol has had a crucial influence on how we perceive icons of the screen such as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda.
With partly large-format colour prints, proofs and one-offs the exhibition documents the transformation of the figure to become an icon. The Ludwig Galerie displays the representation of man in the 20th century over three storeys.
LUDWIGGALERIE Schloss Oberhausen
Konrad-Adenauer-Allee 46
46049 Oberhausen
Tel 0208 4124928
Fax 0208 4124913