...

Order

Newsletter

Distribution

...

Artist's Books / Special Editions

...

Special Editions

Out of print

Contact

Legal notice / Privacy policy

 

 

Günther Förg 1987–2011
Text Bernd Reiß


English / German
Hardcover
29 x 24 cm
96 pages
49 color illustrations
978-3-935567-57-2
out of print


 

Günther Förg has been one of the most influential abstract painters over the last 30 years. His work has been labeled “ferocious abstraction” for his uncompromising approach to painting as a medium and a topic of his art. Both a painter and a photographer, Förg always keeps the modernist tradition in his sights, referencing and subverting its repertoire. He explores, analyzes, and interprets constellations of colors, lines and planes, structures and layers, with swift brushwork on the most diverse grounds, such as copper, lead, wood, or even walls. His architectural photographs still feel like an approximation of the geometry and color palette of the paintings.


Günther Förg 1987–2011 is the documentation of an exhibition at Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin, where paintings from different periods, photographs, and a wall painting together comprised a retrospective overview. Apart from illustrations of the single works, the volume features many installation shots that let the reader experience the architectural logic connecting the diverse work groups, staged as they were together in the gallery’s old factory floors. The photo pieces were hung before a huge wall painting, opening up a resonance room which the real gallery space could enter to add depth to the abstract picture plane.


Bernd Reiß writes in his essay: “While using the aesthetic achievements of modernism for his own ends, Förg rejects their rigid moral, political, and theoretical convictions. He remains true to himself and his approach, yet he also emphasizes change.” It is this slow but steady change from work series to work series that lends Förg’s oeuvre its profoundness and makes this publication a special experience.

 

...
In collaboration with Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin