Café Germany
The Café Deutschland picture series is the result of Jörg Immendorff's creative period at the turn of the 1980s. From 1977 to 1982 19 large formats of the successively narrative café sequence were created, which, however, are accompanied by many watercolors and gouaches with the same motifs.
The focus is on questioning German politics during the Cold War . In his emblematic symbolism, Immendorff criticizes the effects of the conflict between the great powers of the free-market USA and the communist Soviet Union on the German population: The division of Germany into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the GDR becomes the leitmotif of the Café Deutschland images and thus also the geographical distance between the artist collective Immendorff (BRD) - Penck (GDR):
“We want to become a good collective. A collective that includes opposites. Either the understanding succeeds in doing something like this, or the confrontation leads to a decision on the procedure. The important thing is the topic that is constant, the implementation is time-dependent and therefore specific. This turns the subject into a clock that can show what time it is. The watch is a model for the conceptual space. Everyone can check his position on it. "
The historical events and personalities ( Helmut Schmidt , Erich Honecker , AR Penck , Biermann , etc.) of this time are thus shifted fragmentarily in a kind of collage onto the peep box stage of the café room, whereby Immendorff rises into the position of a mediator by integrating his self-portrait. In keeping with the moralizing catharsis , Immendorff wants to point out to his art recipients the right to self-determination. It is therefore not an ideological agit- prop art, but rather an anti-hegemonic illustration of the German grievances, which calls for individual action against totalitarianism and is expressed in the following appeal:
“Appeal to West German and European artists: In your work, deal with questions of everyday life, injustices, the question of the threat of war by two imperialist powers, political oppression - stand up for peace, because if the first bomb falls, no easel stays dry, your Jörg Immendorff, May 1978. "
The Café Germany cycle thus becomes an emancipatory liberation from left-wing Maoist interests, to which Immendorff confessed in the course of the 1970s. Ultimately, Café Deutschland initiates the Café de Flore cycle.
Café Germany I
The 2.85 × 3.33 m large painting Café Deutschland I was created between 1977 and 1978 and has belonged to the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation since 1986 . As a permanent loan, it is housed in the Cologne Museum Ludwig and is currently on display there (as of August 2017).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Ulrich Krempel: Jörg Immendorff - Café Deutschland Adlerh½, catalog: Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, March 27 - May 9, 1982, p. 34.
- ↑ Dieter Koepplin: Jörg Immendorff - "Café Germany", catalog: Exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel, February 24 - April 1, 1979, p. 10. Note: Immendorff has this exclamation in a brush drawing (fig., Page 17 in the catalog ) perpetuated.
- ^ Museum Ludwig: Kulturelles Erbe Köln - Factory view of Café Deutschland I. In: Jörg Immendorf, Café Deutschland I, 1977–1978. City of Cologne, August 7, 2017, accessed on August 7, 2017 .