32 Bilder (32 Paintings)

Executed in 1986, this multifarious set of thirty-two works is an iconic example of Günther Förg’s sequential chromatic explorations. With a similar set of works on paper housed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the present group is a precursor to Förg’s thirty-two-part series of paintings originally developed for the Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, the following year. Demonstrating the artist’s fascination with the relationship between artwork and object, each of the sheets reveals a unique arrangement of forms, hues and textures, confronting the viewer like letters of an abstract alphabet. On a separate sheet, Förg enumerates, in simple linear sketches of ink, the thirty-two arrangements of colour which would define his oeuvre. With a palette ranging from cerulean blue, jet black, bright orange and aqua, to the deeper, more muted hues of grey, violet and olive green, the series offers a thesis on the interaction of colour and material. Whilst the geometric forms appear as blocks of colour from a distance, up close they quiver with nuanced tones and soft, energised brushstrokes, documenting the subtle interaction of watercolour and paper. The relationship between surface and medium would come to define Förg’s artistic explorations, ultimately giving rise to his celebrated lead paintings.
Though Förg’s work may be understood within the context of twentieth-century abstraction, his sensibilities diverged from those of his forebears. Whilst elements of his practice evoke Barnett Newman’s ‘zip’ paintings and Mark Rothko’s shimmering fields, Förg consciously distanced himself from the spiritual, mystical aesthetic espoused by his Abstract Expressionist forebears, preferring instead to conceive his work in purely material terms. In this sense, Förg is conceptually closer to artists such as Ad Reinhardt, who hoped to ‘purge painting of all its non-art content’; essentially, to create an artwork that ‘is just this and nothing else’ (P. Schimmel, quoted in Günther Förg, exh. cat., Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport, 1989, p. 13). Seeking to avoid all claims to transcendence, Förg conceived abstraction in purely material, formal terms: ‘for me, abstract art today is what one sees and nothing more’, he professed (G. Förg, quoted in Günther Förg: Painting / Sculpture / Installation, exh. cat., Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport, 1989, p. 6). The clarity of 32 Bilder invites us to meditate simply on the colours, shapes and surfaces before us, demanding that we experience them in the moment.