Group of zebra

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The group Zebra ( Group ZEBRA ) is an association of realistic working painters and sculptors , posing as representatives of the New Realism comprehend.

history

The group was founded in 1964/65 by Dieter Asmus , Peter Nagel , Dietmar Ullrich and Nikolaus Störtenbecker . In 1976 Störtenbecker left the group. The new members were the sculptors Christa Biederbick and Karlheinz Biederbick as well as Harro Jacob (* 1939), who from 1980 also went his own way again.

The group had various joint exhibitions in the 1970s and early 1980s, including:

As a result, their work could only be seen in individual presentations by the artists. On the occasion of its 40th anniversary , a comprehensive zebra exhibition was shown in 2005 in Kiel ( Stadtgalerie ), Viersen ( Städtische Galerie im Park Viersen ) and Hamburg ( Freie Akademie der Künste ), where the group was founded.

The art-historical significance of the group is based on the fact that in the early 1960s, when tachism and action painting still predominated in Germany , they began to work out the stylistic foundations of a new realism , with the decisive steps up to the artistic reformulation of objects and figures (early 1965) - were made during the founding members' studies at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts . Important suggestions were received from Pablo Picasso , Francis Bacon and Jean Dubuffet .

Stylistic devices

Regarding the artistic goals of the group, the founding manifesto says under point 7: At this point in painting, it is about the complex recreation of things in the picture, about the ABC of things, without resorting to pre-abstract painting.

The implementation takes place through the use of certain stylistic devices that have crystallized in the course of the form-finding phase. These are:

  • Contrast between plasticity and surface
  • Functional view
  • No handwriting
  • Use of local colors
  • Central perspective
  • Middle composition
  • Integration of stylistic devices from photography

The display elements emphasize the volume of the objects, show objects and figures under manageable spatial conditions as exemplary phenomena. In addition, they convey the impression of "correct" standing, lying, flying etc .; thus express the fact that their concrete appearance is meant, whereby - via the conscious integration of display options from photography ( telephoto , wide angle , bird and frog perspective , crop, detail, color cast , etc.) - things come into the picture in a new way .

With regard to the first realistic works, the following design elements come to the fore for the sculptors:

  • The figures are life-size.
  • They don't stand on pedestals, but face the viewer.
  • Avoiding precious materials such as marble or bronze ; instead, cheap polyester resin with no affection value.
  • The smooth surfaces show no tool marks (with an aesthetic life of their own), so that the intended formulation can unfold undisturbed.
  • Use of color as a further reference to what has actually been seen.

Current status

In the joint exhibitions that took place after the sculptors joined the Zebra group and made the New Realism represented by the group known nationally and internationally, the broad agreement (both in terms of content and form) was still evident. The basics are still in agreement today; but the individual characteristics are now shown much more clearly.

literature

  • Rolf-Gunter Dienst : "German Art, a New Generation", DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1970.
  • Wieland Schmied : "German Art since 1945", Frankfurt / Berlin / Vienna, 1975
  • Wolf-Dieter Dube et al .: “The ZEBRA Group” ( ISBN 978-3767205758 ); Helmut Heißenbüttel, “Realism Concept and ZEBRA Group”; Armin Schreiber, "How to grab the ZEBRAS by the tail" in: Hamburg Artists' Monographs on Art of the 20th Century, ZEBRA Group (Vol. 9), Hamburg, 1978.
  • Peter Sager : “New forms of realism. Art between illusion and reality (DuMont documents) ", DuMont Reiseverlag, Ostfildern 1984. ( ISBN 978-3770106561 )
  • Hanns-Theodor Flemming: “More real than reality. Dieter Asmus and the ZEBRA group ”, in: Weltkunst 17, Munich 1992.
  • Christian Rathke: “Paintings and prints from the ZEBRA group”, in: Cat. Bunte Collection, Cismar, 1996.
  • Jens Christian Jensen : “Thinking about ZEBRA”; Armin Schreiber, "ZEBRA and Cicero" in: ZEBRA: 2005, exhibition catalog, Kiel, 2005.
  • ZEBRA: 2005. Exhibition catalog, Kiel, 2005.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ZEBRA Manifesto No.1 / Nov. 64 - Feb. 65 - The NEW REALISM