Ralf Winkler
Encyclopedia
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, printmaker and sculptor.
He was born in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and studied together with a group of other neo-expressionist
Neo-expressionism
Neo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
painters in Dresden. He became one of the foremost exponents of the new figuration alongside Jörg Immendorff
Jörg Immendorff
Jörg Immendorff was one of the best known contemporary German painters; he was also a sculptor, stage designer and art professor.- Life and work :...
, Georg Baselitz
Georg Baselitz
Georg Baselitz is a German painter who studied in the former East Germany, before moving to what was then the country of West Germany...
and Markus Lüpertz
Markus Lüpertz
Markus Lüpertz is a contemporary German painter and sculptor.In the 1960s, Lüpertz worked primarily in Berlin, moving on to take a professorship at Karlsruhe at the Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe in the 1970s, then to Düsseldorf where he was for over twenty years director of the Kunstakademie...
. Under the East German communist regime, they were watched by the secret police and were considered dissidents. In the late 1970s
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
they were included in shows in West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
and were seen as exponents of free speech in the East. Their work was shown by major museums and galleries in the West throughout the 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
. They were included in a number of important shows including the famous Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist is "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age."Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era.The...
exhibition in the well-known Martin Gropius Bau
Martin Gropius Bau
Martin-Gropius-Bau, originally a museum of applied arts and a listed historical monument since 1966, is a well-known Berlin exhibition hall located at Niederkirchnerstraße 7 in Berlin-Kreuzberg.- History and architecture :...
museum and the important New Art show at the Tate
Tate Britain
Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...
in 1983.
In the 1980s he became known worldwide for paintings with pictographic, neo-primitivist imagery of human figures and other totemic forms. He was included in many important shows both in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.
Penck's sculptures, though less familiar, evoke the same primitive themes as his paintings and drawings and use common everyday materials such as wood, bottles, cardboard boxes, tin cans, masking tape, tinfoil, wire and are crudely painted and assembled. Despite the anti-art aesthetic the rough and ready quality of their construction, they have the same symbolic, archetypal anthropomorphic forms as his flat symbolic paintings. The paintings are influenced by Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
's work and mix the flatness of Egyptian or Mayan writing with the crudity of the late black paintings by Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
. The sculptures are often reminiscent of the stone heads of Easter Island
Easter Island
Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...
and other Oceanic art.
A keen drummer, he was a member of the free jazz group T.T.T. ("Triple Trip Touch") and took every opportunity to play with some of the best Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
musicians of the late 1980s including Butch Morris
Butch Morris
Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris is an American jazz cornetist, composer and conductor.-Biography:Before his musical career, Morris served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War....
, Frank Wright
Frank Wright
Frank Wright or Francis Wright may refer to:* Frank Lloyd Wright , American architect* Frank Wright , English cricketer* Frank Wright , free jazz musician and saxophonist...
, Billy Bang
Billy Bang
Billy Bang was an American free jazz violinist and composer.-Biography:...
, Louis Moholo
Louis Moholo
Louis Tebugo Moholo , is a South African jazz drummer.He formed The Blue Notes with Chris McGregor, Johnny Dyani, Nikele Moyake, Mongezi Feza and Dudu Pukwana, and emigrated to Europe with them in 1964, eventually settling in London, where he formed part of a South African exile community that made...
and Frank Lowe
Frank Lowe
Frank Lowe was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist and composer.Born and brought up in Memphis, Tennessee, Lowe took up the tenor saxophone and then moved to San Francisco...
, organising events at his country mansion in Heimbach in 1990 involving installations by Lennie Lee
Lennie Lee
Lennie Lee is a South African conceptual artist who lives and works in London.-Life and career:Lennie Lee is a British artist born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He moved to the UK in 1960. He was educated at Dulwich college in London before winning a scholarship to study philosophy at Christ...
, performances by Anna Homler and paintings by Christine Kuhn
A.R. Penck lives and works in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
, Dublin and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.