OO RT RT i T ii O (Primary Title)
A. R. Penck, German, 1939 - 2017 (Artist)
It is important to me to relate the figurative to the abstract. I am a Neo-Figurative painter; that’s how I started. —A. R. Penck
Penck is one of several German and Italian artists, including Anselm Kiefer, Jörg Immendorf, and Francesco Clemente, who emerged as Neo-Expressionists or Neo-Figurative artists in the late 1970s. Their paintings deal with personal and cultural history and draw upon earlier artistic movements such as German Expressionism. This painting is part of a series in which Penck strove to break communication and logic into basic symbols. Splashes and drips suggest that the work was painted quickly and spontaneously and that Penck’s subject matter flows directly from his unconscious, in the manner of the Surrealists. The letters in the title and the simple shapes surrounding the figure suggest the basic human process of organizing information.
A.R. Penck, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY, January 7 - 28, 1984
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