Skarstedt Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition, Eggman II by Martin Kippenberger which will open Thursday March 3 and be on view through April 16,th 2011. This exhibition is comprised of nine paintings, a group of drawings and one sculpture which date from the three years before Kippenberger’s premature death in 1997. Eggman II aims to reintroduce the works that were included in the last exhibition of Kippenberger’s lifetime at the Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, in Mönchengladbach, Germany, titled Der Eiermann und seine Ausleger (The Eggman and his Outriggers). This exhibition included Kippenberger’s paintings, hotel drawings, as well as found and collected objects organized around the theme of the egg. Eggman II continues this exploration of the egg, one of the central motifs that Kippenberger revisited throughout his oeuvre.
Kippenberger employs the egg as a playful parody in his paintings and sculptures making indirect references to rebirth, reproduction, and the ideal of the circle. Specifically, in Dinosaurierei the egg takes on a morphological concept as the fetal dinosaur is depicted the center of the egg. Always recycling imagery, the egg is the banal comedic device in Kippenberger’s images; in the case of his self-portrait on hotel stationery, the artist literally becomes an eggman where his torso has lost its youthful forms. Kippenberger found a signature symbol in the subject of the egg stating:
“In painting you must look what fallen fruit is left that you can paint. The egg has missed out there, Warhol already had the banana. You take a form for yourself it’s always about angular, square, this and that format, about the golden mean. The egg is white and insipid, how can a colorful picture come from that?”
Known as one of the most versatile and prolific post-war German artists, Martin Kippenberger was born in Dortmund Germany in 1953. He attended the Hamburg College of Art in 1972 and worked in multiple mediums including paintings, sculpture, installation, photography and collage. Kippenberger has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Europe. Major solo exhibitions in recent years include a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a comprehensive survey show at Tate Modern, London and K21 Düsseldorf, as well as participation in numerous group shows.
Kippenberger employs the egg as a playful parody in his paintings and sculptures making indirect references to rebirth, reproduction, and the ideal of the circle. Specifically, in Dinosaurierei the egg takes on a morphological concept as the fetal dinosaur is depicted the center of the egg. Always recycling imagery, the egg is the banal comedic device in Kippenberger’s images; in the case of his self-portrait on hotel stationery, the artist literally becomes an eggman where his torso has lost its youthful forms. Kippenberger found a signature symbol in the subject of the egg stating:
“In painting you must look what fallen fruit is left that you can paint. The egg has missed out there, Warhol already had the banana. You take a form for yourself it’s always about angular, square, this and that format, about the golden mean. The egg is white and insipid, how can a colorful picture come from that?”
Known as one of the most versatile and prolific post-war German artists, Martin Kippenberger was born in Dortmund Germany in 1953. He attended the Hamburg College of Art in 1972 and worked in multiple mediums including paintings, sculpture, installation, photography and collage. Kippenberger has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Europe. Major solo exhibitions in recent years include a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a comprehensive survey show at Tate Modern, London and K21 Düsseldorf, as well as participation in numerous group shows.