13 - Günther Förg

Günther Förg Untitled 1992 Acrylic on lead on wood 60.5 x 60.5 cm. Signed and dated 'Förg 92' verso on wood. - Traces of studio. The present work is registered in the Günther Förg Archive, Münchenstein. Provenance Galerie Grässlin-Ehrhardt, Frankfurt/M. (1992); private ownership, Hesse In Günther Förg’s lead painting from 1992, the area is divided into two zones: apricot at the top and black at the bottom. Both colours are applied in broad, horizontal brushstrokes, the traces of which remain clearly visible. The metal curves slightly at the bottom edge. Günther Förg used ordinary lead sheet from a home improvement shop stretched it over pre-cut wooden panels, and painted it with a single layer of paint, without a primer. Never entirely flat, the soft surface of the lead creates a tension with the straight division of the painting. The surface is non-absorbent and so the paint glides across it with almost no resistance. “As a consequence, firstly this may be what makes for the intense effect produced by the colours, and secondly the rapid, light way that the paint is applied brings a hint of weightlessness to his compositions, something paradoxical in view of the monumental heaviness of the lead panels.” (Max Wechsler, Die paradoxe Schwerelosigkeit der Bleibilder, in: Bärbel Grässlin u.a, (eds.), Günther Förg, Zwölf Bleibilder 1989, exhib.cat., Galerie Bärbel Grässlin, Cologne 2013, unpag.)