Blinky Palermo lived as if intoxicated: alcohol, drugs, women - the artist was his own art figure, staging his prematurely ended life as an unbroken spectacle. His pictures stand in stark contrast to this, almost spartan in their simplicity, inspiring the viewer to reflect through their deliberate sparseness.
(...) Continue readingBlinky Palermo - Lessons with Bruno Goller; master student of Joseph Beuys
Blinky Palermo was born Peter Schwarze on 2nd June 1943 and was adopted by Wilhelm and Erika Heisterkamp, together with his twin brother Michael, shortly after their birth. In 1952, the family, which now also included Billy Palermo's younger sister Renate, moved to West Germany and lived in Münster, where his father had found work at the Mannesmann industrial company. After attending grammar school, Palermo attended sculpture and graphics courses at the Werkkunstschule in Münster in 1961, and in 1962, began studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, initially with Bruno Goller, under whose supervision he created surrealist portraits, and then with Joseph Beuys, who made him his master student in 1966/67.
Anatol Herzfeld named Blinky Palermo after a mafioso
Blinky Palermo's teacher Joseph Beuys is said to have once remarked that the somewhat glamorous name Heisterkamp was not a good name to have, at least not as an artist. During his time at the academy, the budding artist Peter Heisterkamp therefore opted for the pseudonym Palermo, with which he signed all his works. At the time, the first or Christian name Blinky was just a bit of banter between friends, an allusion to Frank ‘Blinky’ Palermo, the Italian-American mobster and promoter of boxer Sonny Liston. The originator of the pseudonym is said to have been the artist Anatol Herzfeld, a friend who felt that Palermo's beatnik outfit with sunglasses, hat and leather jacket reminded him of the cliché of a mafioso.
A great love of experimentation; art with a spatial reference
Blinky Palermo already cultivated friendships with famous colleagues such as Imi Knoebel, Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke during his student days, shared a studio in Mönchengladbach with Knoebel and Ulrich Rückriem for a time, and collaborated several times with the Danish composer Henning Christiansen. With a studio also in New York, Palermo experimented curiously with numerous techniques and painting styles, taking inspiration from Kazimir Malevich and his Suprematism and consciously deviating from established norms. He did not limit himself to canvas and colours, but also used other media, such as lengths of fabric sewn together, which he stretched onto a stretcher frame and painted. He also created murals, although most of them have not survived, and the artist's metal paintings are also well-known. Presentation and hanging are of great importance for almost all of Palermo's works - the art is directly related to the space surrounding it.
Premature death of an unfinished life
Blinky Palermo died on 17th February 1977 in unexplained circumstances during a trip to the Maldives. In his short life, he had two marriages and numerous love affairs, but left no children. Because of his premature, mysterious death, he is regarded by posterity as the mythical James Dean of the art scene. Part of the tragedy surrounding Blinky Palermo is also the fact that his art, as fascinating as it may seem to viewers today, had not yet reached the full degree of maturity that would have been possible had its creator lived and developed over a longer period of time. But perhaps it is precisely this aura of the unfinished that makes Blinky Palermo's legacy so valuable and sought-after.
Blinky Palermo - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz:
