A.R. Penck
Rites de passage
March 18 – June 18, 2017
To paint or sculpt the tribulations of humanity when it is in a state of turmoil; to have as a subject its
challenges, its thoughts, its imaginary representations from the Lascaux caves to urban graffiti; to have as a
focus its history, its power plays, its theaters and its masks: these are the issues that the Maeght Foundation
will explore in 2017.
In the spring, from March 18 to June 18, the exhibition of German artist A.R. Penck will unveil the
extraordinary artistic force of his pictograms and sculptural vocabulary bringing with it epic series of
cultures and dreams.
Ohne Titel (Gruppe), 1961.
Vorstoß, 2010.
"If art is one of the most insightful and accurate ways to understand human psychology, to bring the truth
of an individual to light, it can also strive to express not the identity of a person but the identity of a
"humanity", of a group of men confronted with time or history. Art takes a legendary dimension with A.R.
Penck when he attempts to represent the games, the symbols, the languages and the “chansons de
geste” of this humanity," explains Olivier Kaeppelin. "Adrien Maeght and I also thought it was interesting to
think about the dialogues that his works have with those of Giacometti and Miró.”
Ralf Winckler, better known under the name A.R. Penck, is one of the greatest German artists of the late
twentieth century along with Georg Baselitz, Markus Lüpertz, Sigmar Polke and Jörg Immendorff. A.R. Penck
was born in East Germany in Dresden and will be 78 years old at the opening of his exhibition at the
Fondation Maeght. In 1980, he moved to the West, near Cologne. The criticism of the division of his country
has been an influence on his work. A number of analyses and interviews have highlighted this aspect of his
work.
The exhibition at the Fondation Maeght has chosen another point of view. It’s focus is on the challenges of
his painting and sculpture through different periods chosen to give a better understanding of the richness of
his aesthetic, existential, philosophical and literary worlds. The exhibition will present some one hundred
paintings, sculptures, large sets of drawings, prints and artists' books.
Fondation Maeght. Exhibition calendar 2017. Page 1 / 2.
Waffen, 1968.
Flugblatt (Macht - Besitz), 1974.
Das unbekannte Dresden, 1977.
"I saw the death of time, the disappearance of the movement in the movement, by the movement," writes
A.R. Penck1. The exhibition was specifically built around this poetic position by selecting a group of works
created since 1957, which highlight, alongside historical and moral concerns, the extraordinary aesthetic
force of A.R. Penck’s art.
In his search for freedom, A.R. Penck imagines stepping out of history and time. As a poet, he imagines this
death of time throwing styles and epochs into crisis. He therefore liberates a work driven by utopia. He has
painted several major archetypes of humanity which come from Lascaux as well as contemporary urban
expressions. Through symbols, A.R. Penck looks for a synthetic manifestation of man by models and
standards that are the foundations of a language beyond grammars and lexicons.
Nashorn, 1967.
TV-Bild, 1988.
Adler und Schlange - schwarzer Planet, 2013.
A.R. Penck has invented a colorful pictorial language expressing the rhythm of a constant back and forth
between primitivism and “art brut”, between painting and graffitism of which he is one of the fathers along
with Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. His language aims to be the language of this humanity that he
is trying to portray, by using calligraphic elements, through themes such as human alterity, the relationship
to the animal or cosmic world or a dialogue between catastrophe and the jubilation of dance. All human
history moves towards this creation of rhythmic spaces where living becomes possible. The exhibition
attempts to explain this idea of A.R. Penck who, through painting, sculpture and drawing, shows the
adventure of an artist who perceives his work as "the promise of space," a space to discover, to explore, to
inhabit.
The Fondation Maeght is especially pleased to present this exhibition which interacts with the legacies of Joan
Miró and Alberto Giacometti which Penck makes reference to : with Miró, by a "swept away" drawing and the
insistent presence of the cosmos and with Giacometti, by a synthetic humanity and timeless. A catalogue will be
published with texts by A.R. Penck, Danièle Cohn, Olivier Kaeppelin and Adrien Maeght.
1 Cited
by Bernard Marcadé in « La Mort de la Dialectique » August, 1996.
Legends and visual credits
A.R. Penck © Adagp Paris 2017 - Courtesy Galerie Michael Werner Märkisch Wilmersdorf, Köln & New York.
Ohne Titel (Gruppe), 1961. // Vorstoß, 2010. // Waffen, 1968. // Flugblatt (Macht - Besitz), 1974. // Das unbekannte Dresden, 1977. //
Nashorn, 1967. // TV-Bild, 1988. // Adler und Schlange - schwarzer Planet, 2013.
Fondation Maeght. A.R. Penck exhibition. Page 2 / 2.