German Pop Art

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The German Pop is an art movement of the 1960s and the German attempt at following the American and British Pop Art .

Emergence

For a German and obviously ironic variant of Pop Art, the Düsseldorf artists Gerhard Richter , Manfred Kuttner , Konrad Lueg and Sigmar Polke coined the term Capitalist Realism with which they reacted to American Pop Art. They chose this term, with its ironic allusion to socialist realism, for a joint exhibition in May 1963 in an abandoned shop and for the exhibition and art campaign of Leben mit Pop - a demonstration for the in October 1963 in the Düsseldorf furniture store Berges capitalist realism . From Düsseldorf, the art direction spread to West Berlin and cities in West Germany .

Features and motifs

Since the 1950s, Anglo-American Pop Art has been using motifs from the world of consumption and the mass media to artistically illuminate everyday culture and consumer society . Post-war Germany, which had been given the opportunity again by the “ economic miracle ” to establish itself in a modest prosperity, took up this trend belatedly. Against this social background, German Pop ironized phenomena of the 1960s and the end of the Adenauer era , in particular their ideals of taste and thought patterns as well as the "typical German cosiness" perceived as petty-bourgeois. The establishment of the German art scene and public opinion were largely shocked by this art movement.

Like American-British Pop Art, German Pop paid special attention to everyday culture. Similar to Claes Oldenburg , the German artists focused on “popular culture” and “junk”. By this they understood mass articles, the ordinary, the discarded, kitsch, patterns from mass media, the world of goods and advertising, and elevated it to a material and an artistic subject. In order to draw a clear distinction from the abstract art that was previously widespread in Germany , simple everyday objects such as chairs or boots were often depicted figuratively.

Over time, German Pop developed further, which also changed its motifs. Especially in Berlin and Düsseldorf, the art movement - similar to its Anglo-American counterpart - received a political coloring in the sense of the social criticism of the 1968 movement . As with American-British Pop Art, German Pop Art was mainly expressed in painting and sculpture, using photorealism or stylistic devices of alienation, for example through oversized illustrations.

Exhibition German Pop in the Frankfurt Schirn

For an exhibition at the Schirn in Frankfurt in 2014, the organizers subsequently subsumed very heterogeneous currents under the label German Pop . Based on the 1963 exhibition and performance Capitalist Realism in Düsseldorf , works by artists from Düsseldorf, Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich were presented, which can only be counted as Pop Art in a few cases, such as the works of HP Alvermann , Thomas Bayrle , KP Brehmer , Christa Dichgans and Wolf Vostell . On the other hand, it is a misunderstanding when Konrad Klapheck with his machine pictures and Winfred Gaul with his series of traffic signs and signal pictures are counted among the pop artists. Also Joseph Beuys and the Fluxus -Strömung received their false label here. According to the judgment of the art critic Georg Imdahl , the exhibition “simply does not get enough convincing pictures to support the claim of relevant German Pop Art”.

Exhibition I like progress, German POP Reloaded , Museum Mühlheim, Kunstmuseum Heidenheim, Museum Villingen / Esslingen, 2016

The exhibition from the Kraft Collection in Cologne and from the collections of the participating museums traces the relationship between art and mass media. Selected works by Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Ferdinand Kriwet, Rune Mields, Werner Nöfer and Wolf Vostell show how advertising, photography, graphics, multiples and painting interact with one another.

Main representatives

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry Pop Art . In: Hubertus Butin (Ed.): DuMont's glossary of terms for contemporary art . DuMont, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-8321-5700-X , p. 248 .; Sighard Neckel (Ed.): Capitalist Realism. From the art action to social criticism . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-593-39182-3 , pp. 11-14.
  2. ↑ Georg Imdahl : Unintentionally provincial. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. November 10, 2014, accessed March 24, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Exhibition catalog German Pop. Edited by Martina Weinhart and Max Hollein. Walther König, Cologne 2014.
  4. ↑ Georg Imdahl: Unintentionally provincial. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. November 10, 2014, accessed December 31, 2015 .