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拍品专文
Spanning over three metres in width, Untitled (2005) is a spectacular example of Günther Förg’s celebrated series of Gitterbilder or Grid Paintings. Rendered in a vibrant palette of contrasting colours, the work offers a dense lattice of horizontal and vertical lines: patches of maroon, jet black, beige, coral and emerald gather unevenly across its gridded terrain. Amongst the webs of colour, we are confronted with illusory, interacting fields of depth, their varying contours demonstrating Förg’s ability to construct space within a flat picture plane. Meanwhile, the dynamic, gestural brushstrokes remind us of the painting’s physicality, highlighting the real, haptic presence of the artwork as object. Conjuring the grandeur of an urban cityscape, Untitled is a majestic example of the formal purism, palpable physicality, and architectural handling of space that lie at the core of Förg’s oeuvre.
A natural extension of his early Fenster-Aquarelle (Window-Watercolours)—a series of lattice paintings which served as portals, or windows, into an abstract otherworld—Förg began to create his Grid Paintings in the early 1990s as a means of building and exploring space on the canvas. Since his student days at the Academy of Fine Art, Munich, Förg had placed a central emphasis on the materiality of painting, paying close attention to its basic physical properties. Unlike his German contemporaries Martin Kippenberger, Albert Oehlen and Werner Büttner—the so-called ‘Hetzler Boys’ who championed a dismantling of tradition under the banner of ‘bad painting’—Förg pursued a more measured approach to art: one which distilled painting to its purest essence. He looked to painters including Robert Ryman and Blinky Palermo for inspiration, channelling their desire to disrupt the medium’s conventions, and, in turn, establish a new direction for contemporary abstraction.
Visually, Förg’s works recall the Colour Field canvases of Abstract Expressionism, their large scale and nuanced treatment of colour recalling the rich, sensual surfaces of Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. Whilst echoing these rhythmic, vivid terrains, however, Förg was less concerned with the transcendental power of the medium than the raw, physical properties of paint, championing its ability to construct illusory, interacting fields of depth. ‘Really,’ he proclaimed, ‘painting should be sexy. It should be sensual. These are things that will always escape the concept’ (G. Förg, quoted in D. Ryan, ‘Talking Painting: Interview with Günther Förg Karlsruhe 1997’). A celebration of paint’s chromatic brilliance, along with its ability to evoke a sense of architectural grandeur, Untitled brings this conviction to life, transporting us into its scintillating world of vivid materiality.
A natural extension of his early Fenster-Aquarelle (Window-Watercolours)—a series of lattice paintings which served as portals, or windows, into an abstract otherworld—Förg began to create his Grid Paintings in the early 1990s as a means of building and exploring space on the canvas. Since his student days at the Academy of Fine Art, Munich, Förg had placed a central emphasis on the materiality of painting, paying close attention to its basic physical properties. Unlike his German contemporaries Martin Kippenberger, Albert Oehlen and Werner Büttner—the so-called ‘Hetzler Boys’ who championed a dismantling of tradition under the banner of ‘bad painting’—Förg pursued a more measured approach to art: one which distilled painting to its purest essence. He looked to painters including Robert Ryman and Blinky Palermo for inspiration, channelling their desire to disrupt the medium’s conventions, and, in turn, establish a new direction for contemporary abstraction.
Visually, Förg’s works recall the Colour Field canvases of Abstract Expressionism, their large scale and nuanced treatment of colour recalling the rich, sensual surfaces of Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. Whilst echoing these rhythmic, vivid terrains, however, Förg was less concerned with the transcendental power of the medium than the raw, physical properties of paint, championing its ability to construct illusory, interacting fields of depth. ‘Really,’ he proclaimed, ‘painting should be sexy. It should be sensual. These are things that will always escape the concept’ (G. Förg, quoted in D. Ryan, ‘Talking Painting: Interview with Günther Förg Karlsruhe 1997’). A celebration of paint’s chromatic brilliance, along with its ability to evoke a sense of architectural grandeur, Untitled brings this conviction to life, transporting us into its scintillating world of vivid materiality.