Monday, January 9, 2017

Per Kirkeby - Overpaintings

Last weekend I fond a wonderful old book in the Rotterdam library: Per Kirkeby: Übermalungen, 1964-1984. The book contains deliberate overpaintings (Overmalinger, Übermalungen) of second-hand kitsch paintings. The interventions reveal or enhance the landscapes that hide under the surface.
There is almost no information on the internet so I decided to post a few scans on my weblog. I'm also surprised how much these overpainting resemble the work of Neo Rauch.
... I just stand there and see. See with my X-ray eyes that -reality- is pervaded by strange lines, that there is a structure which lies hidden beneath the real motif in a frightful way.
Die blaue Stunde, 1975
... I understand my paintings as the summation of structures. A sedimentation of very thin layers. Only in extreme despair does a thick layer emerge. In principle an endless sedimentation. But it is conspicuous that the underlying structure always shines through, even when a new layer has a completely different motif and a totally different color.
Ohne titel, 1976
By the synchronous I mean all those pictures where all the layers aim at the same picture, where the underpainting and following layers - glazed or not - fall on top of each other. The unsynchronous are the ones where each new layer is a new picture.
Byzantinische spiegelung nach der Heimkehr / Landschaft, 1977
It is wrong and unscientific, to remodel the real thing. It is the only reality there is, those overgrown heaps mid between nature and art, belonging half to one and half to the other world, in transit between states.
Ohne titel, 1977
... I myself never found the pictures I overpainted. This would have been impossible: in such a case the searching would have been the effort. I have also never overpainted a picture I considered »valuable« in an acutal artistic sense. Almost always only those pictures on the brink of the garbage pail.
Tiefe, 1979
I also always saw it in such a way that, in continuing to paint, I was searching for the real essence of the picture I was overworking. It is indeed as if I were painting one of my »own« pictures. My »argument« was that there was no difference here and that I wasn't making fun of the kitsch. In this respect a lot of history, Pop Art, Jorn's intimate banalities of the forties, Dada, etc. could be brought in here.
Ohne Titel, 1979
It deals with the relationship between what I call: motif, form, structure. The motif is the beginning, the provocation and the possibility of correction. The motif is the memory. Without memory one cannot paint a picture, I believe. One begins with it, without a motif not even blotches get on the canvas in the beginning.
Ohne Titel, 1982
Ohne Titel, Zustand II, 1984

Source:
Per Kirkeby : Übermalungen, 1964-1984 - Author: Per Kirkeby; Luise Horn; Christine Tacke - Hypo Kulturstiftung, Spendhaus Reutlingen, Paperback, Publisher: München : Der Kunstraum, 1984.
Per Kirkeby - OVERPAINTINGS - Luise Horn - In transit between states

See also - with much better colours:
1st4youde-frank-mfischer/6854994736/in/album-72157629631461223/
1st4youde-frank-mfischer/6854994830/in/album-72157629631461223/
1st4youde-frank-mfischer/6854994922/in/album-72157629631461223/

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