577 - Gerhard Hoehme (1920, Greppin near Dessau – Neuss-Selikum, 1989)

Gerhard Hoehme (1920, Greppin near Dessau – Neuss-Selikum, 1989) “Uninterruptible”: The Uninterruptible Oil on canvas. 1958. Approx. 100.5 x 80 cm. Signed, dated, and titled on the reverse, with details of location and technique. Hoehme 58-13. • Significant early work from 1958, dating from Hoehme’s formative phase within the German Informel movement • Powerful, impasto layers of paint coalesce into a vibrant, almost relief-like surface • A radical approach to color and material that paved the way for Hoehme’s later expansion of the painting into space The year 1958 falls within Gerhard Hoehme’s first, extraordinarily productive creative decade, during which he explored the possibilities of Informel painting in his own unique way. The traditional notion of a flat picture plane increasingly lost its validity. For Hoehme, painting becomes an open field of experimentation in which color and material take on a life of their own. In “‘Uninterruptible’ the Uninterruptible,” heavy, impasto-applied layers of paint overlap to form a dense, almost relief-like surface. Gray, bluish, and earthy-red tones run in vertical bands across the canvas, break apart, flow into one another, and thicken once more. The paint takes on a distinct physicality; its textured surfaces capture the light and create a surface that oscillates between movement and stillness. For Hoehme, paint is far more than a creative medium. It is the very driving force behind his painting, determines the working process, and, of its own accord, continually develops new forms and structures. He is less interested in the finished painting than in making visible an ongoing process of creation. The unusual title, too, defies a single interpretation. It can be understood as a conceptual continuation of the movement that unfolds in the painting and seems to extend beyond the boundaries of the canvas. The 1958 painting depicts Hoehme during a decisive phase of his artistic development. His intensive exploration of the possibilities of color and its material presence already foreshadows the radical expansion of the concept of the image with which he would increasingly dissolve the boundaries between painting, object, and space in the years to come. Bibliography: Argan, Giulio Carlo, and Thurn, Hans Peter, *Gerhard Hoehme: Work and Time 1948–1983*, Stuttgart and Zurich 1983, p. 66, color ill.; Fath, Manfred, Gerhard Hoehme: 14 Paintings; “l’Etna—Myth and Reality”; an artistic development project, Städtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim 1985, p. 9, color ill. Exhibition: Gerhard Hoehme. Haus am Waldsee, Berlin 1965, ill. p. 21; Gerhard Hoehme. Between Object and Space, Galerie Georg Nothelfer, Berlin 2017, n. cat.; Gerhard Hoehme. Unterwegs, Georg Nothelfer Gallery, Berlin 2020, unlisted in the catalog; Gerhard Hoehme & Michael Müller. In Praise of Shadows—Navigating Between Thought and Feeling, Georg Nothelfer Gallery, Berlin 2021. Provenance: Galerie Schüler, Berlin; Galerie Nothelfer, Berlin; Olbricht Collection, Germany, acquired from the aforementioned in 2021. Taxation: subject to margin scheme (VAT: Margin Scheme).