A.R. Penck

A.R. Penck In between 2002 Acrylic on canvas 80 x 60 cm. Framed. Signed 'ar.penck'. Provenance Gallery Terminus, Munich (2006) (with sticker and stamp on the back); Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia. An apparently nocturnal scenario unites archaic creatures and symbols in this work: Predatory cat and eagle, sun and moon, people hunting or performing ritual dance. The exploration and visualization of ancient and contemporary, natural and political-sociological contexts has been the focus of A.R. Penck's artistic work since the 1960s. Born Ralf Winkler, the artist adopted this pseudonym in 1968, inspired by the empirical research work of a German geographer and ice age researcher. "Analogous to the natural scientist Albrecht Penck, who searched for information about the Earth's history and a chronology of the Ice Age in the rock layers and sediment deposits [...], Ralf Winkler worked his way through many layers of information, through the entire history of art. As a cultural ice age researcher, he wanted to analyze social forces and structures, based on Marxist thinking. 'What I have in mind is a kind of physics of human society.'" (Eckhart Gillen, Schwierigkeiten beim Suchen der Wahrheit, Heidelberg 2002, p.386).