Capitalist realism

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The term capitalist realism was introduced between 1963 and 1966 by the painters Gerhard Richter (then still Gerd Richter), Konrad Lueg (artist name of the later gallery owner Konrad Fischer ), Sigmar Polke and Manfred Kuttner in order to organize self-help exhibitions and performances under this title .

history

What the four art students had in common was their rejection of the established art movements, with the result that they were unable to enjoy traditional exhibition opportunities. Richter and Kuttner already knew each other from the Dresden Art Academy , Polke and Lueg met them between 1961 and 1962 at the Düsseldorf Art Academy , where they studied with Karl Otto Götz . At the beginning of 1963 they decided to organize a joint exhibition under their own direction. They rented a shop at Kaiserstraße 31 A from the city of Düsseldorf , the walls of which they first had to paint white. In a letter that Richter wrote on behalf of the group, probably in May 1963, to Fox's Tönende Wochenschau , the term appeared for the first time: “We are showing images for the first time in Germany for which the terms pop art, junk culture, imperalist or capitalist realism, new representationalism, naturalism, German Pop and some similar are characteristic. ” The exhibition opened on May 11, 1963.

Further exhibitions

On October 11, 1963, Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg organized a performance at the Berges furniture store in Düsseldorf ( Flinger Straße 11 ), which was opened by the two artists with the demonstration Leben mit Pop - a demonstration for capitalist realism . The term, chosen as the antithesis of socialist realism , was intended to ironically expose the West German “real” capitalism of the 1950s and 1960s, which was characterized by consumption and leisure. Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke and Konrad Lueg received another exhibition under the title “New Realists” on November 20, 1964 in Rolf Jahresling's Parnass Gallery in Wuppertal.

Exhibitions with René Block

Further exhibitions were shown by the gallery owner and curator René Block , who was in close contact with the artists, in Berlin, including the artists KP Brehmer , Karl Horst Hödicke and Wolf Vostell . The artists dealt with other, in some cases more political, topics such as the suppression of the Nazi past, sexism, the Vietnam War, racism and social injustices, which reflected the reality of capitalism. Happenings , graphics , images and installations were used as media to stage the motifs from magazines, advertising, family photos, the world of goods and everyday objects.

Exhibitions on capitalist realism

literature

  • René Block: Graphics of Capitalist Realism 1: Catalog raisonnés until 1971 . Edition Block, Berlin, 1971.
  • René Block: Graphic of Capitalist Realism 2: Catalog raisonnés of printmaking September 1971 - May 1976 . Edition Block, Berlin, 1976.
  • Hubertus Butin : KP Brehmer, KH Hödicke, Konrad Lueg, Wolf Vostell, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, graphics of capitalist realism . Galerie Bernd Slutzky, Frankfurt am Main, 1992. ISBN 3-9802488-9-5 .
  • Susanne Küper: Konrad Lueg and Gerhard Richter: Living with Pop - A Demonstration for Capitalist Realism in: West German Yearbook for Art History in Dumont Buchverlag, Volume LIII, Cologne, 1992, p. 289 ff.
  • Sighard Neckel (Ed.): Capitalist Realism. From art action to social criticism , Campus Verlag, 2010. ISBN 978-3-593-39182-3 .
  • Two and One. Printmaking in Germany 1945-1990 , Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College and Kunsthalle zu Kiel, 2004. ISBN 0-9744898-0-8 .
  • Stephan Strsembski: Capitalist Realism. Object and criticism in the art of the 60s , Kovač, Hamburg, 2010. ISBN 978-3-8300-4919-7 (also: Univ. Diss. Uni Köln 2008)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ZADIK (Ed.): Ganz am Anfang / How it all began: Richter, Polke, Lueg & Kuttner , Verlag für moderne Kunst, 2004, typescript, p. 72
  2. ^ Susanne Küper: Kuttner - Lueg - Polke - Richter. Capitalist Realism? New Vulgarism? Anti-art? ... Düsseldorf and other places. Attempt at a reconstruction , in: Arbeitsgemeinschaft 28 Düsseldorfer Galleries (Ed.): Düsseldorfer Avantgarden. Personalities, movements, places . Richter Verlag, Düsseldorf 1995, p. 55