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Lot Essay
Painted shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Small System stems from A. R. Penck’s series of Venice Paintings. Completed during a residency in the eponymous district of Los Angeles, nine years after he left East Germany to start a new life in the West, it is a thrilling example of his celebrated ‘Standart’. In vibrant tones of red and blue, the artist daubs an inscrutable tableau, populated by the signature stick figures, patterns and symbols that came to define his visual language. For Penck, who came of age rebelling against the restrictions of the Communist regime, ‘Standart’ aspired to the condition of a universal communication code: one that had the power to transcend systems of oppression, and to connect with people across the world. By 1989, having taken his place on the global stage, Penck was beginning to make this dream a reality: the destruction of the Iron Curtain later that year lends a note of historical poignancy to the present work.
Born Ralf Winkler, the artist operated under a variety of pseudonyms throughout his time in East Germany; he eventually settled on a homage to the geologist Albrecht Penck in 1968, adding the initial ‘R’ in reference to his own first name. The moniker allowed Penck to continue working and exhibiting from within the GDR for the next twelve years, until his expulsion in 1980. Already known in the West, his fame reached new heights over the course of the next decade: he participated in the seminal exhibition A New Spirit in Painting at the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1981, as well as Zeitgeist at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin the following year. In 1984 he exhibited at the Venice Biennale, securing his place at the forefront of international Neo-Expressionism alongside figures such as Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. By the time of the present work, Penck had been appointed Professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. His residency in California during this period was a success: reviewing his exhibition at Fred Hoffman Gallery, where the Venice Paintings were shown, the Los Angeles Times critic Cathy Curtis wrote of ‘a muscular vitality’ that was ‘rare among his Continental peers’, and which ‘continues to pump strength into the Neo-Expressionist creed’ (C. Curtis, ‘Santa Monica’, Los Angeles Times, 10 February 1989).
With nods to Picasso and cave paintings, as well as cybernetics, systems theory and structuralism, Penck’s ‘Standart’ railed against the aesthetics of Socialist Realism. While initially strewn with hints at the hardship of life in the GDR, the universal spirit of the language ultimately allowed it to move beyond this context. As Penck travelled freely within the West, Standart evolved with him, offering a means of commenting on the human condition more broadly. In his introduction to the Venice Paintings exhibition catalogue, Fred Hoffman wrote that many of the works Penck completed in California demonstrate ‘a fascination with issues and ideas intrinsic to the local culture, economy, and social climate as well as natural environment’ (F. Hoffman, A. R. Penck: Venice Paintings, exh. cat. Fred Hoffman Gallery, Santa Monica 1989, n.p.). Penck’s musical ambitions, too—borne out in the jazz band Triple Trip Touch, which he formed shortly after his move to the West—would increasingly manifest themselves in his canvases. Here, the figures pulsate as if to an unknown beat, alive with rhythmic vitality and freedom.
Born Ralf Winkler, the artist operated under a variety of pseudonyms throughout his time in East Germany; he eventually settled on a homage to the geologist Albrecht Penck in 1968, adding the initial ‘R’ in reference to his own first name. The moniker allowed Penck to continue working and exhibiting from within the GDR for the next twelve years, until his expulsion in 1980. Already known in the West, his fame reached new heights over the course of the next decade: he participated in the seminal exhibition A New Spirit in Painting at the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1981, as well as Zeitgeist at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin the following year. In 1984 he exhibited at the Venice Biennale, securing his place at the forefront of international Neo-Expressionism alongside figures such as Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. By the time of the present work, Penck had been appointed Professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. His residency in California during this period was a success: reviewing his exhibition at Fred Hoffman Gallery, where the Venice Paintings were shown, the Los Angeles Times critic Cathy Curtis wrote of ‘a muscular vitality’ that was ‘rare among his Continental peers’, and which ‘continues to pump strength into the Neo-Expressionist creed’ (C. Curtis, ‘Santa Monica’, Los Angeles Times, 10 February 1989).
With nods to Picasso and cave paintings, as well as cybernetics, systems theory and structuralism, Penck’s ‘Standart’ railed against the aesthetics of Socialist Realism. While initially strewn with hints at the hardship of life in the GDR, the universal spirit of the language ultimately allowed it to move beyond this context. As Penck travelled freely within the West, Standart evolved with him, offering a means of commenting on the human condition more broadly. In his introduction to the Venice Paintings exhibition catalogue, Fred Hoffman wrote that many of the works Penck completed in California demonstrate ‘a fascination with issues and ideas intrinsic to the local culture, economy, and social climate as well as natural environment’ (F. Hoffman, A. R. Penck: Venice Paintings, exh. cat. Fred Hoffman Gallery, Santa Monica 1989, n.p.). Penck’s musical ambitions, too—borne out in the jazz band Triple Trip Touch, which he formed shortly after his move to the West—would increasingly manifest themselves in his canvases. Here, the figures pulsate as if to an unknown beat, alive with rhythmic vitality and freedom.