Lot 532 D

Trembling, unsymmetrically distributed grids set in vibration in endless rows of painterly structures occupy the pictorial space; the entire canvas surface is covered except for a narrow margin, or more precisely: it is expertly exploited by Günther Förg! The white of the canvas remains visible through the grid structures; it forms the ground, the background for a trellis of deliciously shaped freedom. Self-assertive and challenging! Gestural traces, as is the case here, in the form of a grid in informal independence, follow a principle, a pattern with an abstract order that he constantly rethinks.
These and other serial structures are created in the 'greatest possible unintentionality' from a juxtaposition reminiscent of handwriting which is typical for Förg (Max Wechsler, Schauen, ob es was zu sehen gibt, in: Günther Förg, Felder - Ränder, Milan 2007, p.71): an in-depth examination of the phenomena of grids, stripes, discs, and other networks of simple shapes, painted horizontally and vertically on a surface in presumably brisk movements in acrylic, Förg's preferred painting material.
In an interview by art historian Siegfried Gohr with Günther Förg, the artist gives an insight into his methods: 'I always begin with the lightest colour, which is pragmatic on the one hand, but also produces certain effects. For the subsequent colour, green for example, I simply don't wash out the brush, so I add a certain diversity to the tone of colour. Because mixed tones are still present, so that no pure colours can develop. Four colours are suitable for a painting's palette. One proceeds from green to black, and in this way brown parts appear and somehow the brush is soaked in black. Then one takes red and this also produces a murky red, one increases the red, making it clearer, and thus the nuance is achieved.' (Günther Förg in conversation with Siegfried Gohr, in: Kunst Heute, 1997, no.18, p.31, reprinted in exhib.cat.: Who's Afraid of Red Yellow and Blue? Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, 2007, pp.56 and 58).
At the beginning of the 1990s, the first grid pictures were created... open, fast, hasty, on both dark and light grounds, stage-like scenically presented in the foreground of a virtual space.
The observer gets entangled in the architecturally seeming grids in search of stability and order in the remains of a pretended imagery. He may associate mural painting, brochure-like stage decoration with mural-like structures, in which large-format windows and grids are assessable and quickly ascertainable in the ornamental repetition. Förg's mostly intended deceptive effect begs the question of the existence of a representative image. One answer could be: absolutely perfect colour selection and ingenious alteration of well-known signs in the body of the picture. Or as Siegfried Gohr once aptly stated: 'Förg uses the vocabulary of modernism like opportunities from the typecase of forms, which find a new place in his work.' (Siegfried Gohr, Eine Annäherung an Günther Förg und sein Werk, in: exhib.cat.: Leiko Ikemura, Günther Förg, Zwischenräume, Langen Foundation, 2007, p.64).