Martin Kippenberger was a German artist and one of the most important representatives of the Neo-Expressionist art movement of the 1980s. He was known for his versatile artistic practices that included painting, sculpture, photography, graphics, installation and performance.
Heavy Burschi comes across as a “heavy guy” who, weighing upon his shoulders, is saddled with guilt. The myth of his creation precedes him: a self-built dumpster made of plywood, crammed with smashed oil canvases, literally showcases the annexation of works finished by the skilled hands of someone else – as disposable art. It is as if Martin Kippenberger (1953–1997) had destroyed them himself in an adolescent fit of competitive envy. More than any other, this installation first presented in 1991 at the Kölnischer Kunstverein preserves Kippenberger’s regressive genesis of replication and valorization, in defiance of artistic sanctimonious visions of originality, authorship, or even sovereignty.
Gallery Captain Petzel shows the exhibition "Heavy Burschi" until February 18.
Text: Capitain Petzel / Photos Gunter Lepkowski
21.01. - 18.02.23
Capitain Petzel
Karl-Marx-Allee 45
D-10178 Berlin
