.jpg?w=1)
拍品专文
Untitled is a stunning example from Günther Förg’s lead series, displaying the artist’s long-standing exploration of colour, abstraction and form. Stretching to nearly two metres in height, the German artist has compositionally divided his piece into two contrasting colours in equal sections – a rich, vibrant red and a mysterious green – resulting in an impressive investigation into the textural quality of the lead medium. The opposing colours provide differing energies and surface texture in the way that they react to light, ensuring the piece is lively and dynamic. Daring and dedicated, Förg’s artistic practice remains unique and distinct, within the conversation on post-war abstraction. Examples of Förg’s artworks are found in major international museum collections such as the Tate Modern, London, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
As in all of Förg’s lead paintings, Untitled bares an intentional materiality and form, achieved by his energetic application of paint and material choices. The unique texture of the lead is simultaneously heavy, malleable and soft to the touch. Where the paint has been applied, sumptuous, yet flat, curves and ripples are revealed on the surface of the lead. In juxtaposition with the smooth application of paint, Förg introduces a tension between the so-called ‘flatness’ of the picture plane and the brushstroke. The irregularities and inconsistencies of the lead provide a challenge to Förg that he embraces wholeheartedly – the panel becomes a stage on which Förg explores the potential of paint. As the artist has explained: ‘I like very much the qualities of lead – the surface, the heaviness. Some of the paintings were completely painted, and you only experience the lead at the edges; this gives the painting a very heavy feeling - it gives the colour a different density and weight. In other works the materials would be explicitly visible as grounds. I like to react on things, with the normal canvas you often have to kill the ground, give it something to react against. With the metals you already have something - its scratches, scrapes’ (G. Förg, quoted in D. Ryan, Talking Painting, Karlsruhe 1997, http:/www.david-ryan.co.uk/Gunther0Forg.html [accessed 9 September 2014]). Hailed as a ‘painter’s painter’, Förg’s works have often been included in the long debated Modernist discussions of abstraction and the discourse of colour. From Piet Mondrian’s concept of purity through pictorial grids to Barnett Newman’s ‘zip’ paintings, Förg’s application of colour operates alongside, whilst simultaneously exploiting the basic principles of this discourse.
As in all of Förg’s lead paintings, Untitled bares an intentional materiality and form, achieved by his energetic application of paint and material choices. The unique texture of the lead is simultaneously heavy, malleable and soft to the touch. Where the paint has been applied, sumptuous, yet flat, curves and ripples are revealed on the surface of the lead. In juxtaposition with the smooth application of paint, Förg introduces a tension between the so-called ‘flatness’ of the picture plane and the brushstroke. The irregularities and inconsistencies of the lead provide a challenge to Förg that he embraces wholeheartedly – the panel becomes a stage on which Förg explores the potential of paint. As the artist has explained: ‘I like very much the qualities of lead – the surface, the heaviness. Some of the paintings were completely painted, and you only experience the lead at the edges; this gives the painting a very heavy feeling - it gives the colour a different density and weight. In other works the materials would be explicitly visible as grounds. I like to react on things, with the normal canvas you often have to kill the ground, give it something to react against. With the metals you already have something - its scratches, scrapes’ (G. Förg, quoted in D. Ryan, Talking Painting, Karlsruhe 1997, http:/www.david-ryan.co.uk/Gunther0Forg.html [accessed 9 September 2014]). Hailed as a ‘painter’s painter’, Förg’s works have often been included in the long debated Modernist discussions of abstraction and the discourse of colour. From Piet Mondrian’s concept of purity through pictorial grids to Barnett Newman’s ‘zip’ paintings, Förg’s application of colour operates alongside, whilst simultaneously exploiting the basic principles of this discourse.