117 - A. R. Penck (1939–2017), Oben Unten, 1996

A. R. Penck (1939–2017), Oben Unten, 1996 Acrylic on canvas, signed lower right, countersigned, dated, and titled on the reverse—120 x 100 cm Provenance: > Michael Schultz Gallery, Berlin (label on the back) > Sotheby’s auction, Hubert Guerrand-Hermès Collection, L’Hôtel de Lannion, Paris, December 14, 2023, lot no. 229 > Private collection, Paris A.R. Penck (pseudonym of Ralf Winkler) was born in Dresden (Germany) and began painting around the age of ten. During his teenage years, he rubbed shoulders with painters and sculptors in Dresden, with whom he studied and broadened his cultural horizons. At sixteen, he began an apprenticeship as a commercial artist, which he quickly abandoned; he then met Georg Baselitz, failed the entrance exams for the Dresden and Berlin Academies of Fine Arts, and decided to become a self-taught artist.
From the 1960s to the early 1980s, he set out to systematize his artistic practice. Drawing on theories of information and cybernetics, he devised processes and methods that would make his paintings accessible and understandable to as many people as possible, in pursuit of the utopian ideal of a universal language. In 1980, he was forced to leave East Germany and settle in the West. At the same time, the first exhibitions dedicated to his work took place in France (CAPC in Bordeaux, 1980, and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1981). He is associated with “New German Expressionism” alongside other artists such as Georg Baselitz, Markus Lüpertz, and Jörg Immendorff, and internationally with the Bad Painting movement (Basquiat in the United States, Robert Combas in France, etc.). His work, characterized by schematic lines, had a definite influence on Keith Haring: he primarily used lines and graphic symbols reminiscent of cave paintings, Asian calligraphy, and graffiti. This primitive style relies on a complex interplay of symbols: symbols, numbers, letters, and motifs combine to create a meaning that remains forever incomplete and indecipherable. In this way, Penck offers a clue that allows each viewer to understand his works in their own way: as seen here in this iconic painting titled “Up/Down,” where possible interpretations vary depending on the sensibility of the viewer.