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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION

B. 1939
KOMPOSITION (ÜBERTRITT: OST/WEST)
COMPOSITION (PASSAGE: EAST/WEST)

inscribed Für Eva 7.2...Ralph and r on the reverse

acrylic on laminated cardboard

Executed in 1968.

PROVENANCE

Eva Maria Hagen & Wolf Biermann, Berlin (a gift from the artist)
Sale: Hauswedell & Nolte, Hamburg, Kunst nach 1945, 11 June 1988, Lot 1061
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

EXHIBITED

Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie & Württembergischer Kunstverein; Tübingen, Kunsthalle; Hamburg, Deichtorhallen; Vienna, Bank Austria Kunstforum, Sammlungsblöcke. Stiftung Froehlich, 1996-97, p. 96, no. 161, illustrated in colour
Tokyo, Setagaya Art Museum; Hiroshima City, Museum of Contemporary Art, A. R. Penck, 1997, p. 56, no. 27, illustrated in colour


LITERATURE

Exhibition Catalogue, London, Tate Gallery, The Froehlich Foundation. German and American Art from Beuys and Warhol, 1996, p. 96, no. 161, illustrated

NOTE

A. R. Penck's unmistakeable compositions have a unique vocabulary. Combining primitive figuration with abstract signs and symbols, he has developed an off-the-wall neo-expressionism that is completely his own. Penck gave himself the pseudonym or "paint name" A. R. Penck (his real name is Ralf Winkler) for his first show at Michael Werner Gallery in Cologne in 1969, shortly after the present work was painted. The original A.R. (Albrecht) Penck was a renowned geologist who was an expert on the Ice Age; the latter Penck sought to show in paint the effects of the maelstrom of the Cold War on human beings and socio-political systems. Penck saw himself to be not so much an artist as a scientist: "I have moved away from things artistic and am applying myself to mathematics, cybernetics and theoretical physics, for what is in my mind, a sort of physics of human society, or society as a physical entity." (the artist in a letter to Georg Baselitz, c.1965, cited in: John Yau, A.R. Penck, New York 1993, p. 42)

In the present work, which translates as "Passage (East/West)", Penck refers directly to the flight from East to West and that totemic symbol of Cold War life, the Berlin Wall. Penck's gift of this work to Eva Maria Hagen (mother of German punk singer Nina Hagen) and Wolf Biermann - a prominent and influential artistic couple who were vocal opponents to the Communist led regime in the GDR - was as political a statement as the subject itself. At the time he painted this work, he was still living in East Germany, his paintings were deemed to be bourgeois and decadent, his application for membership in the GDR Society of Fine Artists (VBK) was rejected and his pictures had to be smuggled out to the West. He brings these experiences into Übertritt, creating a powerful sense of movement, flight, escape and pursuit. In addition, by layering primitive motifs -- the characters are noticeably similar to Ice Age cave paintings -- over what seems like complex scientific and mathematical formulae, Penck explores the illusion of (Marxist) progress. Here, he makes clear his belief that human nature remains the same, no matter what scientific discoveries and sociological systems we surround ourselves with; history is seen as cyclical, not linear. Übertritt is a very important composition, one of the earliest works to develop the style and ideas that made Penck famous, it achieves the goal Penck set himself, demonstrating a truth of life in the GDR in the Cold War much more powerfully than any text-book history.