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Lot Essay
‘I always had a wish to become an abstract painter. I wanted to reproduce in my own career the classical development in the history of art from figurative to abstract painting. But I wasn’t ready to make the change before 1988. In Spain I made myself free for the project’ (A. Oehlen, quoted in A. Stooke, ‘I Wanted My Paintings to Like Me’, The Telegraph, 1 July 2006)
‘Spain was extremely productive… totally extreme, for me it was the start of my abstract paintings, a radical revolution in my painting, the decisive step in my development’ (A. Oehlen, quoted in S. Kippenberger, Kippenberger: The Artist and his Families, Berlin 2007, p. 343).
Bold and unabashed, Albert Oehlen’s Untitled presents an explosion of colour and gesture, form and texture, that detonates across the surface of the picture plane. Painted in 1988, the year that marked Oehlen’s embrace of abstraction, it stems from one of the most pivotal moments in the artist’s career. It was during this year that Oehlen embarked upon his legendary trip to Spain with his great friend and comrade, Martin Kippenberger. Occupying a house in Andalusia, Oehlen made a significant move away from the figurative canvases of his youth, ushering in the abstract idiom that defines some of his most significant works. As the artist recalls, ‘Spain was extremely productive … totally extreme, for me it was the start of my abstract paintings, a radical revolution in my painting, the decisive step in my development’ (A. Oehlen, quoted in S. Kippenberger, Kippenberger: The Artist and his Families, Berlin 2007, p. 343). Within Oehlen’s celebrated overhaul of painting as a contemporary medium, the abstract works became a sophisticated forum for the artist’s unique fusion of stylistic elements, producing canvases that implode their art-historical lineage with the sweeping confidence typicalof the 1980s post-Punk generation. Here, Oehlen collides the gestural exuberance of Abstract Expressionism with raw, scrawled textures redolent of street graffiti. Combining a deliberately incongruous palette with an anarchic application of paint, Oehlen emblazons a cartoonish smiley face in the top right-hand corner. Formal geometries and linear shapes clamour for attention but refuse to define themselves. Tinged with the conceptual wit of Kippenberger and the subversive radicality of his former teacher Sigmar Polke, it indicates Oehlen’s desire to unhinge the mechanics of painting and unleash the untapped possibilities of abstraction.
The 1980s was Oehlen’s watershed decade. The enfant terrible of the German art scene and ringleader to his unruly group of peers, Oehlen marshaled his contemporaries into a euphoric assault on painting amidst the clinical purity espoused by Minimalist and Conceptualist art. Through irreverent engagement with painting’s historical and technical clichés, Oehlen opened up striking new directions for its development. The abstract paintings played a distinctive and carefully-meditated role in this trajectory. ‘I always had a wish to become an abstract painter’, he has stated. ‘I wanted to reproduce in my own career the classical development in the history of art from figurative to abstract painting. But I wasn’t ready to make the change before 1988. In Spain I made myself free for the project’ (A. Oehlen, quoted in A. Stooke, ‘I Wanted My Paintings to Like Me’, The Telegraph, 1 July 2006). Through its dialogue with conflicting artistic registers, the present work bears witness to Oehlen’s desire to carve a new aesthetic autonomy for abstract painting. In this regard, it may be said to embody Hamza Walker’s description of Oehlen’s canvases as ‘a chorus of contradictory gestures; figuration is set against abstraction, form against anti-form, the rhythm of pattern versus a meandering stroke, and a muddy mix of colours juxtaposed against vibrant pigment straight from the tube ... Oehlen’s paintings are always autonomous in so far as they have managed to eliminate through contradiction an allegiance to any particular style’ (H. Walker, ‘The Good, the Bad, the Ugly’, in Albert Oehlen: Recent Paintings, exh. cat., The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Chicago, 1995, https://www.renaissancesociety.org/site/Exhibitions/Essay.Albert-Oehlen- Recent-Paintings.88.html [accessed 26 May 2014]).
Like Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke before them, Oehlen and Kippenberger cultivated a symbiotic relationship that spurred each other along their own creative pathways. Coming to prominence through the gallerist Max Hetzler, the two shared exhibition spaces, coauthored publications and collaborated on a wide variety of creative projects from sculpture to music. Recalling their spontaneous year-long retreat to Spain, Kippenberger stated that ‘It was like we were engaged’ (M. Kippenberger, quoted in S. Kippenberger, Kippenberger: The Artist and his Families, Berlin 2007, p. 276). Oehlen himself reflects upon the period as one of intense creative exchange. ‘It was meant to be a time to think and experiment and make something new. He came up with some extreme sculptures that followed the three “Peter” shows and also with his self-portraits, and I came up with the abstract paintings. We were working like that for the whole year and testing things out on each other’ (A. Oehlen, quoted in E. Banks, ‘Albert Oehlen talks to Eric Banks’, Artforum, April 2003). Though Kippenberger continued to pursue figurative work during this time, the two had a profound motivational effect upon one another, and it was within this focused creative environment that Oehlen was able to move away from the brashness of his youth towards artistic maturity. ‘I started making an effort to be seen as a serious painter’, Oehlen has explained (A. Oehlen, quoted in E. Banks, ‘Albert Oehlen talks to Eric Banks’, Artforum, April 2003). In the abstract works, Oehlen’s keen critical eye, sharp intellect and experimental flair are brought to bear on a practice that occupies an aesthetic category all of its own.
‘Spain was extremely productive… totally extreme, for me it was the start of my abstract paintings, a radical revolution in my painting, the decisive step in my development’ (A. Oehlen, quoted in S. Kippenberger, Kippenberger: The Artist and his Families, Berlin 2007, p. 343).
Bold and unabashed, Albert Oehlen’s Untitled presents an explosion of colour and gesture, form and texture, that detonates across the surface of the picture plane. Painted in 1988, the year that marked Oehlen’s embrace of abstraction, it stems from one of the most pivotal moments in the artist’s career. It was during this year that Oehlen embarked upon his legendary trip to Spain with his great friend and comrade, Martin Kippenberger. Occupying a house in Andalusia, Oehlen made a significant move away from the figurative canvases of his youth, ushering in the abstract idiom that defines some of his most significant works. As the artist recalls, ‘Spain was extremely productive … totally extreme, for me it was the start of my abstract paintings, a radical revolution in my painting, the decisive step in my development’ (A. Oehlen, quoted in S. Kippenberger, Kippenberger: The Artist and his Families, Berlin 2007, p. 343). Within Oehlen’s celebrated overhaul of painting as a contemporary medium, the abstract works became a sophisticated forum for the artist’s unique fusion of stylistic elements, producing canvases that implode their art-historical lineage with the sweeping confidence typicalof the 1980s post-Punk generation. Here, Oehlen collides the gestural exuberance of Abstract Expressionism with raw, scrawled textures redolent of street graffiti. Combining a deliberately incongruous palette with an anarchic application of paint, Oehlen emblazons a cartoonish smiley face in the top right-hand corner. Formal geometries and linear shapes clamour for attention but refuse to define themselves. Tinged with the conceptual wit of Kippenberger and the subversive radicality of his former teacher Sigmar Polke, it indicates Oehlen’s desire to unhinge the mechanics of painting and unleash the untapped possibilities of abstraction.
The 1980s was Oehlen’s watershed decade. The enfant terrible of the German art scene and ringleader to his unruly group of peers, Oehlen marshaled his contemporaries into a euphoric assault on painting amidst the clinical purity espoused by Minimalist and Conceptualist art. Through irreverent engagement with painting’s historical and technical clichés, Oehlen opened up striking new directions for its development. The abstract paintings played a distinctive and carefully-meditated role in this trajectory. ‘I always had a wish to become an abstract painter’, he has stated. ‘I wanted to reproduce in my own career the classical development in the history of art from figurative to abstract painting. But I wasn’t ready to make the change before 1988. In Spain I made myself free for the project’ (A. Oehlen, quoted in A. Stooke, ‘I Wanted My Paintings to Like Me’, The Telegraph, 1 July 2006). Through its dialogue with conflicting artistic registers, the present work bears witness to Oehlen’s desire to carve a new aesthetic autonomy for abstract painting. In this regard, it may be said to embody Hamza Walker’s description of Oehlen’s canvases as ‘a chorus of contradictory gestures; figuration is set against abstraction, form against anti-form, the rhythm of pattern versus a meandering stroke, and a muddy mix of colours juxtaposed against vibrant pigment straight from the tube ... Oehlen’s paintings are always autonomous in so far as they have managed to eliminate through contradiction an allegiance to any particular style’ (H. Walker, ‘The Good, the Bad, the Ugly’, in Albert Oehlen: Recent Paintings, exh. cat., The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Chicago, 1995, https://www.renaissancesociety.org/site/Exhibitions/Essay.Albert-Oehlen- Recent-Paintings.88.html [accessed 26 May 2014]).
Like Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke before them, Oehlen and Kippenberger cultivated a symbiotic relationship that spurred each other along their own creative pathways. Coming to prominence through the gallerist Max Hetzler, the two shared exhibition spaces, coauthored publications and collaborated on a wide variety of creative projects from sculpture to music. Recalling their spontaneous year-long retreat to Spain, Kippenberger stated that ‘It was like we were engaged’ (M. Kippenberger, quoted in S. Kippenberger, Kippenberger: The Artist and his Families, Berlin 2007, p. 276). Oehlen himself reflects upon the period as one of intense creative exchange. ‘It was meant to be a time to think and experiment and make something new. He came up with some extreme sculptures that followed the three “Peter” shows and also with his self-portraits, and I came up with the abstract paintings. We were working like that for the whole year and testing things out on each other’ (A. Oehlen, quoted in E. Banks, ‘Albert Oehlen talks to Eric Banks’, Artforum, April 2003). Though Kippenberger continued to pursue figurative work during this time, the two had a profound motivational effect upon one another, and it was within this focused creative environment that Oehlen was able to move away from the brashness of his youth towards artistic maturity. ‘I started making an effort to be seen as a serious painter’, Oehlen has explained (A. Oehlen, quoted in E. Banks, ‘Albert Oehlen talks to Eric Banks’, Artforum, April 2003). In the abstract works, Oehlen’s keen critical eye, sharp intellect and experimental flair are brought to bear on a practice that occupies an aesthetic category all of its own.