Martin Kippenberger. Respektive 1997-1976

04 february 1998 - 03 may 1998

Curated by Christian Bernard

A key figure in German art, Martin Kippenberger (Dortmund, Germany, 1953 – Vienna, Austria, 1997) opposes the rigor of Conceptual Art and the concept of the work of art as a text that is consumed in the analysis of its own language.

The exhibition documents his multi-faceted nature, in a complete retrospective that includes, in addition to figurative painting, sculptures made from everyday objects, photographs, graphics and drawings.

In the late ‘Seventies, in Berlin, he founds the Kippenberger Büro, a multipurpose center open to various forms of underground culture, where he organizes shows by young artists who will become leading figures of the new German art. He also publishes books and magazines and plays in punk music groups. This activity in support of culture, and the visual arts in particular, continues throughout his career, up to the creation, in 1993, of a museum of contemporary art built into the ruins of a public slaughterhouse on the Greek island of Syros.

His critique of the traditional concept of the artist is explicated in his refusal to adopt a recognizable style and in his desire to move through many different languages, offering painting that hovers between figuration and abstraction. Kippenberger brings this attitude to extreme consequences, entrusting the creation of the paintings he planned to others, asking them to imitate the style of famous artists. These practices free the artistic act of pathos, putting it on the level of the realm of mass communication, arriving at a parody of the art system as a realm separate from reality.

[K.G.]