Raimund Girke - Untitled - image-1

Lot 49 D

Raimund Girke - Untitled

Auction 1200 - overview Cologne
01.06.2022, 18:00 - Evening Sale - Modern and Contemporary Art
Estimate: 50.000 € - 70.000 €

Raimund Girke

Untitled
1976

Egg-oiltempera on canvas. 200 x 180 cm. Signed and dated 'Girke 76' verso on stretcher and with direction arrow.

In a conversation with Jürgen Schilling, Raimund Girke comments as follows, “Particularly in the seventies, I used to work with larger formats but without ending up with an oversized format. The formats still related to my own stature. But if they do become larger, it is because a movement that I carry out can only then fully unfold; it is not immediately inhibited and hampered as it would be in a small format, and this is conveyed to the viewer by these formats. You have the feeling that you can fully inhale and fully exhale, you don’t feel constricted. The traces of personal disagreements are still present and the residue of private abbreviations will never be completely erased. Probably even this subjective element will again have a stronger influence on the picture than before. When asked about the difference between his works and those of Robert Ryman, Girke explains, “[...] With me it is not a question of a colour film, but the new layer of paint – which has substance, materiality – connects with the one underneath. There are connections! I do not put one layer on top of the other without the two having anything to do with each other and I can detach them from each other again at will afterwards, but I try to apply the next layer of paint in such a way that the appearance of the picture is changed, but that nevertheless an intimate connection is entered into with what is already there and that what is there still co-determines the final appearance of the picture. Only in this way can one also justify the assertion that the canvas is already an important element of the picture, just as the first layer of primer and the various layers of paint.” (Jürgen Schilling in conversation with Raimund Girke, in: Raimund Girke, Arbeiten auf Leinwand und Papier, exhib.cat. Kunstverein Braunschweig, 1979, p.20)

Exhibitions

Berlin 1986 (Neuer Berliner Kunstverein), Bottrop (Quadrat Bottrop, Josef-Albers-Museum), Frankfurt/M. 1986/1987 (Kunstverein), Raimund Girke, Malerei, 1956/1986 (label verso)