Manfred Kuttner

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Manfred Kuttner (born January 27, 1937 in Greiz , Thuringia ; † October 28, 2007 in Erkrath near Düsseldorf ) was a German painter , object artist and experimental filmmaker. Together with Konrad Lueg , Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter , he founded “ Capitalist Realism ” in 1963 .

Life

After an apprenticeship as a letterpress and poster painter, Manfred Kuttner initially studied at the Dresden Art Academy (today: Dresden University of Fine Arts ) in what was then the GDR. At the beginning of 1960 he fled to West Germany and continued his studies at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf in the master class of KOGötz . There he made friends with Konrad Lueg , Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter , whom he knew from Dresden. His first exhibition took place in 1962 together with Gerhard Richter in the “Galerie Junge Kunst” in Fulda, which was curated by her fellow student Franz Erhard Walther . In May 1963, the “Demonstrative Exhibition” organized by Manfred Kuttner, Konrad Lueg, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter took place in a former butcher's shop at 31 A Kaiserstraße in Düsseldorf . The term “ capitalist realism ” appeared for the first time in the jointly drafted press release . In February 1964, the four artists staged the improvised “ front garden exhibition” in the snow-covered villa garden of the Parnass Gallery in Wuppertal. Manfred Kuttner received first prize at the Biennale in San Marino together with the artist group ZERO and took part in the exhibitions “Neodada, Pop, Decollage, Kapit. Realism ”and“ Hommage á Berlin ”in the newly founded Galerie René Block , in Berlin. After that, Kuttner withdrew from the art business and then worked as the “head of the graphic studio” at Hermann Wiederhold paint factories in Hilden .

After an exhibition in the Johann König Gallery in Berlin in 2005, an ongoing process of rediscovery and reassessment of Manfred Kuttner's work began. In 2013 a retrospective took place in the Villa Merkel , Esslingen and in the Langen Foundation , Neuss. The accompanying catalog contains a catalog raisonné of Kuttner's work. Manfred Kuttner lived and worked in Erkrath near Düsseldorf; He died in October 2007 of complications from cancer.

plant

After initially dealing with the work of Paul Cézanne and the West German Informel, Manfred Kuttner began to paint in 1962 with fluorescent colors from the Plaka company. His geometrically structured images and objects (“typewriter”, “piano”, “holy chair”, “saddle”, “slot machine”) oscillate between Op - and Pop Art , Nouveau Réalisme , ZERO and Kinetic Art. Flickering luminous color contrasts and a casual brushwork set Kuttner's pictures and objects in motion. Image titles such as “Achterbahn”, “Dual”, “Behang”, “Gartenlaube” or “Tombola” refer to Kuttner's imagery that was shaped by the West German economic miracle. In 1963, the experimental film "AZ" was shot in single frames, which thematized everyday urban life in Düsseldorf in the 1960s in staccato-like sequences, as well as an 8-part photo series of a woman's body painted with a kinetic diamond pattern. Kuttner's work, which was created within just five years and which combines Pop Art with abstraction - gestures with ornament - painting with sculpture and film, cannot be clearly assigned to any direction and occupies a special position within the art of the 1960s.

Exhibitions

  • 1966: 14th German Artists Association Exhibition, Essen
  • 12th exhibition of the West German Artists Association, Ernst-Osthaus-Museum Hagen
  • 1996: Large art exhibition in North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf
  • 2005: Manfred Kuttner - Hasard , solo exhibition, Galerie Johann König, Berlin
  • 2007: The Artist's Dining Room. Anselm Reyle / Thomas Scheibitz / Manfred Kuttner , Tate Gallery of Modern Art , London
  • 2008: Works from 1962-64 , westlondonprojects, London
  • 2013: Manfred Kuttner - retrospective , Villa Merkel, Esslingen; Langen Foundation, Neuss
  • 2013: Living with Pop . A reproduction of capitalist realism . Manfred Kuttner, Konrad Lueg , Sigmar Polke , Gerhard Richter . With a contribution by Christopher Williams , Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
  • 2014: What should you see first? , Solo exhibition, Johann König, Berlin
  • 2014: German Pop , Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main

literature

  • Andreas Baur, Marcus Weber and Christiane Maria Schneider (eds.), Manfred Kuttner, work show, survey. Catalog for the retrospective in the Villa Merkel, Esslingen and in the Langen Foundation, Neuss, 2013. Cologne 2013. ISBN 9783863354022
  • Gregor Jansen, Elodie Evers, Magdalena Holzhey (eds.): Living with Pop. A reproduction of capitalist realism. Living with Pop. A Reproduction of Capitalist Realism ..., catalog for the exhibition in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2013. Cologne 2013. ISBN 9783863353339
  • sediment. Issue 7/2004. Right at the beginning / How it all began Richter, Polke, Lueg & Kuttner. Central archive for the history of the art trade (publisher), Nuremberg 2007. ISBN 3936711704

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Homepage Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, current exhibitions , accessed on August 2, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Kuttner, Manfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, object artist and experimental filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Greiz , Thuringia
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 2007
Place of death Erkrath near Düsseldorf