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Günther Förg * (born 1952 in Füssen) Untitled, signed Förg, dated on the reverse 2000, acrylic on canvas, 490 x 290 cm, on a dismountable aluminium stretcher, (PS) Provenance: private collection, Germany Exhibition: Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, Förg, 27 May-25 June 2000; Kunsthaus Bregenz, 25 May 2001-8 July 2001 Windows are a major theme in Günther Förg's art: views from windows as they appear as a subject in photography. He covers real windows with paint and makes the motif of the window the subject of his painting. These experiments with different levels of reality provoke a moment of irritation and insecurity in the spectator. "When windows are lacking or when they open up views, Förg does not illustrate them in a direct way, the way the image was interpreted as a window opening in the Renaissance by the followers of Leon Battista Alberti." Förg operates from the position of an observer focusing his attention on yet another spectator. That is why his citations and allusions follow an idiosyncratic me hod, for the painter starts out from concepts, not from the mimetic approach of previous art. Förg's pictorial concept and strategies thus require investigation. The picture is not a window, and it is not spatial; it is identical with a surface into which a grid has been inserted. Whenever this grid happens to take on the form of a window, a special case occurs that allows the artist to modify the non-objective aspect within a metaphor (picture - closed window); however, this never grants Förg any literary elbowroom. The metaphor of the window already contains the whole amount of metaphorical energy, which is set free by the painter. Everything that happens remains visible on the surface, as something going on in front of the picture. The motif of the closed window likewise remains entirely non-literary, just as Beckmann's view from an open window. In order to limit the metaphorical impulse, Förg ensures that the painted quality of the picture prevails." Siegfried Gohr, "Fenster-Motive im Werk von Günther Förg", p. 45, in: Reiner Speck (ed.), Laissez un message - Günther Förg zum 50., pp. 32-54, Cologne 2005