Untitled

Executed in acrylic on wood, Untitled, 1992, is a monumental example of Günther Förg’s distinctive abstract language. The work presents a vast field of red paint with a slender strip of grey slicing down the left hand side; both zones of colour are brought forth in dry, vertical brushstrokes that deliberately reveal the pale ground beneath, and underscore the hand of the artist in textural detail. Untitled reflects the conceptual principles that underpin Förg’s art – a formal purism, the sense of the artwork as object, and an architectural interest in space, both real and illusory. Förg is, on the one hand, interested in reminding the viewer of the work’s objective existence; the brushstrokes boldly draw attention to the process of the painting’s creation, reminding the viewer of its physical reality as a worked object and artefact. However, this physicality is contrasted with the way in which the painting elsewhere explores the ambiguous space of the picture plane, the sheer visual allure of the surface drawing the viewer – almost despite himself – into illusion. The red zone envelops the viewer in its vivid corporeal presence, and is lent a compelling drama of velocity by Förg’s vertical application of paint. The grey sector, with its translucent interplay of dark and light strokes, takes on a near-metallic glint that echoes the exposed raw lead that Förg used in many other works. Förg’s practice is clearly aligned with the traditions of abstract painting that thread through the 20th century, but his sensibilities are often very different. Seeking to avoid the claims of spirituality or subjectivity underpinning so much historical abstract work, Förg instead saw his task as the presentation and exploration of form, considering it visually without ascribing it further meaning: he once explained that, for him, ‘abstract art today is what one sees and nothing more’ (G. Förg, quoted in Günther Förg: Painting / Sculpture / Installation, exh. cat., Newport Beach, 1989, p. 6). In its ambiguous and richly sensuous treatment of shape and surface, Untitled transports us between the imagined spaces of painting and the real, corporeal presence of an artwork as it exists in the flesh.