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Lot Essay
Painted at a defining moment in A. R. Penck’s career, Standart-West KR 1 (1982) belongs to one of the first series he made after his move from East to West Germany. Spanning three metres in height, and two in width, it is a monumental expression of freedom, uncertainty, power and change. In stark monochrome, a totemic figure looms large amid a sea of abstract signs and symbols. His arms are raised in combat: the ‘K’ in the work’s title stands for ‘Krieger’, meaning ‘warrior’. Penck first coined the term ‘Standart’ to describe his work while living under oppressive rule in the East. It designated a universal language of primitive, simplified forms, which aspired to communicate across geopolitical boundaries. Penck’s emigration to the West in 1980 propelled this utopian vision onto the global stage, with Standart taking its place at the forefront of German Neo-Expressionism. Encapsulating the spirit of this transformative period, the Standart-West works were defined by a new sense of painterly euphoria, each rendered with free, gestural brushstrokes. Several were exhibited at documenta in 1982, and two were acquired by the Albertina, Vienna.
Penck was born Ralf Winkler in 1939, and grew up in Dresden during the Cold War. Refusing to conform to the Socialist Realist aesthetic sanctioned by the Communist regime, he was denied membership to the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR, and was forced to operate through a variety of pseudonyms. Chief among them was A. R. Penck: a name borrowed from the German geologist Albrecht Penck, with an ‘R’ added in reference to his own initials. With the help of the gallerist Michael Werner, who famously smuggled his paintings over the border in his car, Penck began to build up a reputation in the West. After members of the secret police trashed his studio in 1979, he was expelled from the GDR as a dissident. Free from censorship, his career began to flourish: he participated in the seminal 1981 exhibition A New Spirit in Painting at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, as well as the 1982 show Zeitgeist at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin. That year, he was finally able to attend documenta in person, having previously participated in 1977 from the other side of the Iron Curtain.
The raw vitality of Standart chimed with the work of Penck’s contemporaries, including Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. At the same time, however, it stood in a league of its own. Aside from its conscious references to jazz, graffiti and the works of Pablo Picasso—many of which had inspired his peers—it also drew upon a number of esoteric sources, including systems theory, structuralism and the philosophies of Kant and Hegel. For Penck, Standart—born from a conflation of the English word ‘Standard’ and the German ‘Standarte’, meaning ‘banner’ or ‘flag’—was more than a painterly style. Rather, it was a language: an analytical tool for interrogating the relationship between the individual and society. Its synthesis of human communication systems—from cave painting to cybernetics—drew deliberate parallels between early and modern civilisations. The Standart-West works, though expressive of Penck’s newfound artistic liberation, were equally full of scepticism about the contemporary Western world. Today’s battles, his towering warriors suggest, are perhaps no more sophisticated than those of our ancient ancestors.
Penck was born Ralf Winkler in 1939, and grew up in Dresden during the Cold War. Refusing to conform to the Socialist Realist aesthetic sanctioned by the Communist regime, he was denied membership to the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR, and was forced to operate through a variety of pseudonyms. Chief among them was A. R. Penck: a name borrowed from the German geologist Albrecht Penck, with an ‘R’ added in reference to his own initials. With the help of the gallerist Michael Werner, who famously smuggled his paintings over the border in his car, Penck began to build up a reputation in the West. After members of the secret police trashed his studio in 1979, he was expelled from the GDR as a dissident. Free from censorship, his career began to flourish: he participated in the seminal 1981 exhibition A New Spirit in Painting at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, as well as the 1982 show Zeitgeist at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin. That year, he was finally able to attend documenta in person, having previously participated in 1977 from the other side of the Iron Curtain.
The raw vitality of Standart chimed with the work of Penck’s contemporaries, including Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. At the same time, however, it stood in a league of its own. Aside from its conscious references to jazz, graffiti and the works of Pablo Picasso—many of which had inspired his peers—it also drew upon a number of esoteric sources, including systems theory, structuralism and the philosophies of Kant and Hegel. For Penck, Standart—born from a conflation of the English word ‘Standard’ and the German ‘Standarte’, meaning ‘banner’ or ‘flag’—was more than a painterly style. Rather, it was a language: an analytical tool for interrogating the relationship between the individual and society. Its synthesis of human communication systems—from cave painting to cybernetics—drew deliberate parallels between early and modern civilisations. The Standart-West works, though expressive of Penck’s newfound artistic liberation, were equally full of scepticism about the contemporary Western world. Today’s battles, his towering warriors suggest, are perhaps no more sophisticated than those of our ancient ancestors.