48 - A.R. Penck

A.R. Penck Alpha-Ypsilon 1996 Bronze with green patina Height approx. 228 cm. Scratched signed and numbered. Cast 2/4 (+ 3 AP). - Traces of weathering. Provenance Directly from the artist; private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia A cast of this bronze is in the collection of the New Carlsberg Foundation in Copenhagen. This work can be viewed in Cologne, Lindenthal. For further information please call phone +49 221 92572986; contemporary@lempertz.com “Totem, fetish, and taboo remain effective ideas in the West since Freud, and still have a certain influence on life and ideas.” (A.R. Penck in: Donald Kuspit, A.R. Penck, Sculpture, exhib.cat. Magasin 3, Stockholm Konsthall, Stockholm 1989 unpag.) A.R. Penck developed a distinctive visual language built around a vocabulary of symbolic signs. His characteristic figures and graphic icons evoke a range of visual traditions, from prehistoric cave paintings and Asian calligraphy to the immediacy of graffiti art. In bronze, the graphic signs of his two-dimensional works are translated into roughly carved, vertical forms that assume a totemic presence. The bronze gives these simplified forms a touchable presence and material depth that contrasts with the graphic immediacy of Penck’s paintings. Created in 1996, the present sculpture exemplifies Penck’s distinctive approach to form and material. Its raw, irregular surface and roughly worked contours heighten its expressive intensity, lending the work an elemental, almost archaic character. With their pared-down forms and seemingly timeless visual language, Penck’s sculptures recall prehistoric artefacts and the ritual objects of African and Oceanic traditions, which have inspired numerous modern and contemporary artists.