A.R. Penck (1939-2017) German

"Standart auf Kreuzsockel" (Standart on cross base) (1993/94)

This piece is unique, hand signed (incised into the metal verso), ed.1/7, stainless steel, each with a different base, 24cm by 23cm by 17cm

Provenance: Collection of Gottfried Bräunling
Galerie Kellermann, Düsseldorf
Private Collection, California
Private Collection, UK

Sold together with the certificate of authenticity

Born Ralf Winker (1939-2017) in Dresden in the wake of WWII and the partition of Germany, Penck was a painter, printmaker, draftsman, sculptor, filmmaker, and musician. He was a largely self-taught artist, the art academies of the GDR (German Democratic Republic) having repeatedly denied him entry into formal training, but he managed to study drawing and painting at a community college (1953-54) before taking up a draughtsman apprenticeship at an advertising agency. In 1968 he began to exhibit illicitly in Cologne, West Germany. It was around this time he took up the pseudonym of ‘A.R Penck’ after studying the work of the geologist Albrecht Penck. The unlawful exhibitions led to the Stasi (secret police) watching him, so in 1980 he was expatriated from East to West Germany.

When he officially entered the West in 1980, his visual language of reduced, simplified stick figures and symbols acclimatised to the wave of Neo-Expressionism. He called his style “Standart,” standard symbols that could be understood universally. The simple forms were inspired by cave paintings and follow the artistic traditions set by German Expressionism. He utilised “Standart” to confront socio-political themes and personal emotions. In 1970 he said that “Every Standart can be imitated and reproduced and can thus become the property of every individual…What we have here is a true democratisation of art.” This unique stainless-steel figure is one of seven, each with a different base. The free-standing sculpture showcases the austere simplicity of the industrial material as well as the irregular depiction of the human body.

Penck had a prolific career and worked in Dusseldorf, Dublin, London, and Cologne. He participated in some Documenta exhibitions (1972, 1977, 1982, and 1992) in Kassel, Germany, and in the 41^st Venice Biennale (1984); has received multiple awards, not limited to the Goethe Rembrandt Prize by the Foundation in Basel (1980) and Nord/LB Prize for Art (1987). Today, Penck’s works can be found in the collections of the London Tate Modern, the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum, the Kunstmuseum Basel and others.