Press release
From November 5 to December 18, 1999, the Michael Werner Gallery presents the exhibition "Jörg Immendorff - New Pictures".
Jörg Immendorff's (b.1945, Bleckede) paintings serve as a stage for the artist to present his worlds of ideas and artistic discourses. His new works have moved away from the social content of his early work, instead they now focus on the subject of painting. Immendorff not only wants to determine his own position within the history of painting, but confronts it in a lively dialogue.
In paintings such as 'The Course of the World' or 'Trap II' he deals with models such as Albrecht Dürer and Caspar David Friedrich, takes up their motifs in order to incorporate and update them in his own representations. He includes his own work in this permanent reflection. He takes up existing emblems and forms again and puts them into new contexts. His pictures are "continuations, further formulations" of what has already been created.
Again and again Immendorff exposes himself to self-questioning and attempts to determine the location of art, as for example in 'Silberbild (Oda)'. Commenting on the dazzling relationship between painter and model, Immendorff presents himself here as Ingres' Odalisque, sitting painting in front of an easel. This figure listens to the instructions of a man who has stepped to her side with a book in his hand. An arm appears in the background carrying a yellow glowing sun into the black and white painting. The interplay of Immendorff's art historical, iconographic, and psychological references, which he incorporates into his figurative choreography, illustrate the multi-layered path of his pictorial invention.
The constant rethinking of his own positions and statements leads him to a surprising pictorial language that is unusual for him, as a series of his latest works shows. Immendorff dispenses with the stage-like pictorial space typical of him in favor of open pictorial surfaces in delicate yellow or light blue tones with shadowy forms. In one picture, 'Untitled', the blurred dark silhouette of a caterpillar can be seen in front of the white silhouette of a lily. Only in two smaller fields appear like quotes the familiar stage spaces with figurative scenes. From the impasto light yellow color surface, these are captured like cocoons and clears his picture surface to formulate with a few forms a statement that opens further questions.
