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拍品专文
"Colours emerge, the paintings become more open, and even the material’s arbitrary elements on the surface and in the patina become part of the picture." (G. Förg, quoted in Günther Förg, Paintings on Lead, exh. cat., Thomas Dane Gallery, London, 2006, p. 7)
Executed on a monumental scale, Lead Painting is a striking work by artist Günther Förg. Its immense surface, consisting of a sheet of lead metal, is immediately identifiable as the creation of an artist who emerged as a seminal figure among the generation of postwar German artists that included Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen. For Förg, his choice of materials became his vehicle of expression, and one of his signature accomplishments was to distill painting to its purist essence, an achievement which can be seen so strikingly in the present work.
This painting instantly engages the viewer through its impressive verticality (it measures almost eight feet in height), in vital contrast with its understated painterly language that makes reference to Minimalism and Color Field Painting. In particular, the painting pays homage to the great Color Field practitioner Barnett Newman, and specifically his “zip” paintings, which used vertical stripes to organize the pictorial space of his compositions.
Here, two copper-brown tonal fields flank a stripe that bisects the entire composition from the upper to the lower edge. Partially painted in white, the stripe references Newman while also revealing Förg’s signature adoption of uncommon materials to be used as supports for his paintings. Thinly applied washes of white acrylic are applied over a lead base, emphasizing the artist’s brushwork against the matte-gray metal, which continues to assert itself beneath the paint layers.
The unadorned metal surface also establishes a dialogue with the depth, dimensionality, and energy of the artist’s brushstrokes, the lead ground does adhere the pigment as a fabric support might, but rather allowing it to rest on the surface, thus emphasizing the brushstrokes’ every gesture. Förg valued lead for its unique appearance and physical characteristics, its patina, its surface imperfections suggestive of the handmade, its heft, and its soft malleable texture. The nature and quality of the lead surface in dialogue with the acrylic colors and the artist’s gestural brushstrokes captivates the viewer.
Förg’s art practice was a multidisciplinary one, seeking dialogue between painting and other art methods and media. Fascinated by modernism and its legacy, he explored the conventions of painting, investigated materials, methods, and traditions, and engaged his art in a vital dialogue between the Abstract Expressionist Generation and his own, as one critic put it, “Without doubt, Günther Förg’s radicalness shook up the very idea of painting” (M. Hetzler, “Günther Förg (1952–2013),” Artforum, 5 May 2014).
Executed on a monumental scale, Lead Painting is a striking work by artist Günther Förg. Its immense surface, consisting of a sheet of lead metal, is immediately identifiable as the creation of an artist who emerged as a seminal figure among the generation of postwar German artists that included Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen. For Förg, his choice of materials became his vehicle of expression, and one of his signature accomplishments was to distill painting to its purist essence, an achievement which can be seen so strikingly in the present work.
This painting instantly engages the viewer through its impressive verticality (it measures almost eight feet in height), in vital contrast with its understated painterly language that makes reference to Minimalism and Color Field Painting. In particular, the painting pays homage to the great Color Field practitioner Barnett Newman, and specifically his “zip” paintings, which used vertical stripes to organize the pictorial space of his compositions.
Here, two copper-brown tonal fields flank a stripe that bisects the entire composition from the upper to the lower edge. Partially painted in white, the stripe references Newman while also revealing Förg’s signature adoption of uncommon materials to be used as supports for his paintings. Thinly applied washes of white acrylic are applied over a lead base, emphasizing the artist’s brushwork against the matte-gray metal, which continues to assert itself beneath the paint layers.
The unadorned metal surface also establishes a dialogue with the depth, dimensionality, and energy of the artist’s brushstrokes, the lead ground does adhere the pigment as a fabric support might, but rather allowing it to rest on the surface, thus emphasizing the brushstrokes’ every gesture. Förg valued lead for its unique appearance and physical characteristics, its patina, its surface imperfections suggestive of the handmade, its heft, and its soft malleable texture. The nature and quality of the lead surface in dialogue with the acrylic colors and the artist’s gestural brushstrokes captivates the viewer.
Förg’s art practice was a multidisciplinary one, seeking dialogue between painting and other art methods and media. Fascinated by modernism and its legacy, he explored the conventions of painting, investigated materials, methods, and traditions, and engaged his art in a vital dialogue between the Abstract Expressionist Generation and his own, as one critic put it, “Without doubt, Günther Förg’s radicalness shook up the very idea of painting” (M. Hetzler, “Günther Förg (1952–2013),” Artforum, 5 May 2014).