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拍品专文
This luminous diptych by Günther Förg is a doubly resplendent example of his lead paintings, renowned works housed in some of the world’s most prestigious modern art galleries (Museum of Modern Art, New York, Stedelijk, Amsterdam, and Tate Modern, London). Förg applied vertical strips of acrylic paint over the subtle incandescence of a lead ground, anticipating spectacular mutations in the painted surface. In this work, a thick block of deep forest green is dramatically juxtaposed by a thin strip of bright azure blue, set against the lead on the left and right panel respectively. The generous distribution of the rich, sublime green hue engulfs the metal, whilst the ribbon of light blue glows vulnerably against it. The atmospheric oxidisation of the lead causes a spectacularly characterful patina, working in harmony with the thin films of paint to create a flat organism of unexpected deviations and modulations. As Förg professed in 1997, ‘I like very much the qualities of lead - the surface, the heaviness… 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, https://www.david-ryan.co.uk/Gunther%20Forg.html [accessed 31 July 2017].
Such experiments in colour, surface and geometry may seem reminiscent of Barnett Newman’s ‘zip’ paintings, or Rothko’s ability to make coloured forms vibrate and breathe on the canvas. However, Förg claimed that his lead paintings lack the transcendental imperative commonly associated with his modernist predecessors, but engage directly and explicitly with ‘what one sees and nothing more’ (G. Förg, quoted in Günther Förg: Painting/Sculpture/Installation, exh. cat., Newport Beach, 1989, p. 6). Diverting his attention away from the emotionally metaphysical response of the Abstract Expressionists, Förg concerns himself with the purity of abstraction, channelled via a medium that he favoured for its rich chemical composition, unpredictable patina, and infinite polychromatic possibilities.
Such experiments in colour, surface and geometry may seem reminiscent of Barnett Newman’s ‘zip’ paintings, or Rothko’s ability to make coloured forms vibrate and breathe on the canvas. However, Förg claimed that his lead paintings lack the transcendental imperative commonly associated with his modernist predecessors, but engage directly and explicitly with ‘what one sees and nothing more’ (G. Förg, quoted in Günther Förg: Painting/Sculpture/Installation, exh. cat., Newport Beach, 1989, p. 6). Diverting his attention away from the emotionally metaphysical response of the Abstract Expressionists, Förg concerns himself with the purity of abstraction, channelled via a medium that he favoured for its rich chemical composition, unpredictable patina, and infinite polychromatic possibilities.