Für Jochen Hiltmann

Held in the collection of Mireille and James Lévy since 1988, Für Jochen Hiltmann (1979) is an arresting large-scale canvas that bursts with the arresting, graphic pictorial force typical of A. R. Penck’s work. Painting in broad, energetic strokes, Penck engages his distinctive stick-figures in a vivid scene: the largest, in red, seems to be painting a picture; others brandish spears, juggle, or walk on stilts. An alien and a silhouetted dragon, who roars the words was wenn (‘what if’), emerge from a craggy black ground. To the left is what looks like a protest, with people waving placards beneath a lion among green stars. Taking inspiration from primitive cave paintings and German Expressionism, Penck’s paintings bring together text, symbol and image in what he saw as a universal human language. He painted this picture in support of Jochen Hiltmann, a professor at Hamburg’s University of Fine Arts who was on trial for participating in a demonstration against the Vietnam war six years earlier. Hiltmann’s supporters felt he was being unjustly targeted by the West German government, and held a group exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, in solidarity. Alongside Penck—who had himself been harassed by the East German regime before escaping to West Berlin, and was an outspoken advocate of artistic freedom—other participants in the show included Joseph Beuys, Sigmar Polke, Jörg Immendorff and Bernd and Hilla Becher.