For the 2010 edition of the Art Show, David Nolan Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of works on paper and sculpture by Martin Kippenberger (b.1953 - d.1997).
Prior to Martin Kippenberger's premature death in 1997, he was one of the most inventive and prolific artists of his day. He emerged in Cologne during the early 1980's as part of a group of young German artists responding to the preceding generation of postwar artists that included Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, and Anselm Kiefer. During the span of twenty years, Kippenberger produced a diverse body of works that included all media, from paintings, drawings and sculptures, to photographs, posters, books, and invitations for his own exhibitions.
Kippenberger's art had an "anything goes" conceptual aesthetic that paid homage to the cult of the avant-garde through the act of ridicule. The persona of the artist was a fluid idea for Kippenberger, ripe for exploitation. He played the prankster, the cowboy, the criminal, the cross-dresser and, towards the end his life, the aging, dying tragic figure. The hundreds of Hotel Stationery drawings produced by Kippenberger often featured a self-portrait from the neck up, his mouth and brows twisted in a sardonic grin, or a full body shot, his pathetically, sagging figure standing half-dressed. These drawings engage the notion of the artist as wanderer and evoke the pathos of human existence.
David Nolan Gallery was one of the first in the United States to feature Martin Kippenberger's works, mounting five solo exhibitions between 1989 and 1999.
For more information, please visit http://artdealers.org/artshow.html