Paul Thek

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paul Thek (born November 2, 1933 in Brooklyn , † August 10, 1988 in New York City ) was an American painter and object artist .

Life

George Joseph Thek was born the second of four children. His parents were of German or Irish descent. In 1950 Thek studied at the Art Students League of New York and at the Pratt Institute of Arts in Brooklyn , then from 1951 to 1954 at the Cooper Union School of Arts in New York. In 1954 he moved to Miami and worked in various professions. This is where the first drawings were made : studies in charcoal and pencil, followed by abstract watercolors and monochrome oil paintings . Since 1955 he called himself Paul Thek. Thek first exhibited his work in 1957 (in a gallery in Miami). After his return to New York in 1959, his circle of friends included Peter Hujar and Joe Raffaele, the artists Eva Hesse and Ann Wilson, as well as Gene Swenson and Susan Sontag . From 1959 to 1962 he worked as a textile designer at Prince Studios, New York. Thek lived and worked in Rome from 1962 to 1964, and returned to New York in 1964. In 1964 he starred in Screen Test by Andy Warhol with. In 1966 he created works that were created by casting his body and parts of his body. From the late 1960s onwards, he attracted attention with his process-based and situational installations .

Thek lived in Italy in the 1970s, and many of his works were created in collaboration with the photographer Peter Hujar . He did not return to New York until 1976. The artist died on August 10, 1988 in New York. Susan Sontag dedicates her book AIDS and its Metaphors (German title Aids und seine Metaphern ) to his memory.

plant

Theks' exciting oeuvre cannot be assigned to any particular artistic media: he was a draftsman, painter, sculptor, installation artist and creator of space-consuming environments . "His works of art show themselves mystically, religiously and critically towards social injustices as well as towards the art world, whereby he sometimes contradicts the nomadic hippie and transfigured charismatic, but also often plays a portion of melancholy and humor in his works."

Paul Thek exhibited at the 4th documenta , 1968, and documenta 5 , 1972, both in Kassel .

His best known works include: The Procession , 1969, ( Stedelijk Museum , Amsterdam ); Pyramid / A Work in Progress , 1971 (Moderna Museet, Stockholm) and The Tomb-Death of a Hippie , 1967 ( Whitney Museum of American Art , New York).
The world's most extensive collection of Thek's works is located in the Kolumba Museum , which presented an inventory catalog of his works in 2012. Kolumba not only lends works by Paul Thek to other museums and galleries, etc. a. for the first major American retrospective Paul Thek - Diver from October 2010 to September 2011 in New York ( Whitney Museum of American Art ), Pittsburgh ( Carnegie Museum of Art ) and Los Angeles (Hammer Museum), but he's also in almost everyone Annual exhibition represented. In addition, his works are the focus of the sixth annual exhibition at Kolumba Art is Liturgy. Paul Thek and the others. from September 15, 2012 to August 15, 2013 in Cologne.

Exhibitions

Works in public collections

literature

  • Marietta Franke: Work in Progress - Art is Liturgy. The historical, procedural and viewer-related exhibition concept by Paul Thek. Lang, Frankfurt 1993, ISBN 978-3-631-45928-7 .
  • Philipp Wittmann: Paul Thek - From the early work to the "technological reliquaries". Klaus Bielefeld Verlag , Friedland 2004, ISBN 978-3-8983-3061-9 .
  • Paul Thek (Author), Margrit Brehm (Ed.), Axel Heil (Ed.), Roberto Ohrt (Ed.): Tales the Tortoise Taught Us. König, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-8656-0389-0 .
  • Harald Falckenberg, Peter Weibel (Ed.): Paul Thek - Artist's Artist. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2009, ISBN 978-0-2620-1254-6 .
  • Susanne Neubauer: Paul Thek Reproduced. 1969-1977. Documentation, publication and historicization of spatial ephemeral works of art. Silke Schreiber, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-88960-126-1 .
  • Collection catalog Kolumba : Paul Thek. Shrine (KOLUMBA workbooks and books, volume 38) , ed. by Stefan Kraus , Ulrike Surmann, Marc Steinmann and Barbara von Flüe, with texts by Joachim M. Plotzek, Dirk Teuber, Michael Nickel, Friedhelm Mennekes , Jean-Christophe Ammann , Susanne Neubauer and Katharina Winnekes, Druckhaus Duisburg OMD 2012, ISBN 978- 3-9813182-7-2 (also available in English).
  • Susanne Neubauer: Paul Thek in Process. JRP Ringier, Zurich 2012, ISBN 978-3-03764-253-5
  • Paul Thek. From Cross to Crib. Walther König, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-86335-335-3

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ First Major US Museum Retrospective of Paul Thek at the Whitney, October 21, 2010 – January 9, 2011
  2. ^ First Major US Museum Retrospective of Paul Thek at the Whitney, October 21, 2010 – January 9, 2011
  3. ^ Text on the exhibition Paul Thek - Work Show in Context , curated by Roland Groenenboom, Gregor Jansen with the participation of Axel Heil and Margrit Brehm. ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www02.zkm.de
  4. ↑ http://www.kolumba.de/?language=ger&cat_select=1&category=1&artikle=422&preview= Homepage Kolumba (Cologne), accessed on September 30, 2012
  5. ↑ Kolumba inventory catalog: Paul Thek. Shrine (KOLUMBA workbooks and books, volume 38), ed. by Stefan Kraus, Ulrike Surmann, Marc Steinmann and Barbara von Flüe, with texts by Joachim M. Plotzek, Dirk Teuber, Michael Nickel, Friedhelm Mennekes, Jean-Christophe Ammann, Susanne Neubauer and Katharina Winnekes, Druckhaus Duisburg OMD 2012, p. 10 .


personal data
SURNAME Thek, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American painter
DATE OF BIRTH November 2, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York City
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 1988
Place of death New York City