Werner Berges

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Werner Berges at his 2007 exhibition at Pan Kunstforum, Emmerich

Werner Berges (born December 7, 1941 in Cloppenburg ; † October 26, 2017 in Schallstadt ) was a German Pop Art artist. For a number of contemporary critics, Berges matured very early to become one of the most important representatives of Pop Art in Germany.

Life

Werner Berges was born in Cloppenburg in 1941. From 1960 to 1963 he studied commercial graphics with a focus on fashion design at the Bremen Art School .

From 1962, Berges created a series of abstract works that suggest the American Cy Twombly as a source of inspiration. Berges became interested in Twombly's work at an early age, but refused to speak of direct influence.

From 1963 to 1968 he studied free painting at the State University of Fine Arts in Berlin with Alexander Camaro . In 1965 Berges slowly turned to figurative painting. Works from this period show anthropomorphic figures that are spread across the canvas and are often not recognizable as such at first glance. The individual figures present themselves in the most varied of forms, meander across the picture surface, creating a surreal impression that still dominates the figurative.

In 1966 Berges became a member of the Großgörschen 35 exhibition group, which was founded in 1964. One of his early solo exhibitions took place in 1966 in the rooms of the exhibition group.

In 1967 Berges found his main theme: women. No other motif fascinated him as much as the female body: "For me, a beautiful woman is still the most perfect thing I can imagine: the ideal object of art." Berges presented the type of woman known from advertising, but he did removed the advertising figure from its context and presented it to the viewer in a completely new light. He emancipated the advertising mannequins by freeing them from their artificially imposed eroticism and placing them on an equal footing with the viewer.

Berg sculptures in front of the town hall of Cloppenburg
Mountain sculpture in Lohne

Werner Berges is one of the main representatives of German Pop Art , but he himself was rather critical of this classification. In contrast to American Pop Art artists like Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein , Berges alienated his motifs. The anonymous played an important role in Berges' work. He himself liked to stay in the background and only signed his works on the back. Berges freed women from their advertising context and placed them in a completely new pictorial context. He reduced the female body to simple shapes and combined them with different patterns, such as circles, flat stripes of color or replaced the body line with loose contour points. He himself said that his grids have nothing in common with those of Roy Lichtenstein, because he did not use them to intensify, but to alienate the motif. With a few exceptions, Berges' women were not famous people either.

The artist made not only pictures, but also sculptures . In particular, his motif “Lots of people” can be seen in different versions in the public space of several cities, e. B. in front of the town hall of his native city of Cloppenburg and in the middle of a busy roundabout in Lohne (Oldenburg) .

Werner Berges was a member of the Deutscher Künstlerbund and the Künstlerbund Baden-Württemberg. Berges lived and worked in Schallstadt near Freiburg and in Cadaqués / Spain. He died in October 2017 at the age of 75. Berges' artistic estate is curated by his daughter Amala Berges.

photos

Typical of Berges' work are bright primary colors, clear contours, the use of grid dots and stripes, which give the paintings the character of reproductions in a playful way.

The content of his works are repeatedly taken from advertising, women, models and stars from advertising and fashion photography, although the artist gave them a new status through his portrayal. He implemented erotic bodies, seductive looks and radiant faces with strong colors, grid points, stripes and collages. Berges' work is underlaid with a "graphic line structure". This line structure is independent of colored zones and grid points.

In Werner Berges' work, there are also some trompe- l'oeil-like images that try to fool the beholder's eye.

At first glance, some give the impression that it is a collage. However, if you take a closer look, the surfaces are only painted. Others give the impression that individual zones have been torn from the surface of the canvas. This effect is reminiscent of the demolished billboards used by the Affichists , but here it is only an illusion.

Exhibitions

Opening of the 16th exhibition of contemporary art in the house of the Federal President on June 20, 1973 (from left to right: Hilda Heinemann , Brigitte Stamm , Werner Berges)

Solo exhibitions (selection)

  • 1965: Museum village of Cloppenburg
  • 1984: Eude Gallery, Barcelona
  • 1998: Kunstforum Zürich
  • 1999: Kunsthaus Grenchen
  • 2000: Museum of the City of Ratingen and Art Association Münsterland, Coesfeld
  • 2002: Oldenburg City Museum
  • 2008: Morat Institute
  • 2011: Neuffer am Park Kunsthalle, Pirmasens
  • 2011: The Artist's Cut , DavisKlemmGallery Frankfurt
  • 2011/2012: sometimes abstract! - a selection for his 70th birthday , Galerie Kammer, Hamburg
  • 2012: Art + Culture Circle Damme eV, Damme, Lohne, Steinfeld
  • 2013: No Paint , DavisKlemmGallery, Munich
  • 2014: Hackstück # 4 Werner Berges: The graphic work , Wilhelm Hack Museum , Ludwigshafen am Rhein
  • 2014: Times striped , DavisKlemmGallery, Wiesbaden
  • 2016: Werner Berges Imaginations - works on paper , Museumsverbund Nordfriesland, Schloss vor Husum , Husum
  • 2016: Werner Berges: 50 works from 50 years , Kunsthalle Cloppenburg, Cloppenburg
  • 2016/2017: Werner Berges: Big and Small , galerie pro arte, Freiburg
  • 2017: Werner Berges - Pop Art , State Museum for Art and Cultural History Oldenburg
  • 2017: Werner Berges - 100+ , LEVY Gallery, Hamburg
  • 2017: Werner Berges: Then and Now, DavisKlemmGallery, Wiesbaden

• 2019: "Werner Berges: Also sometimes like that", LEVY Gallery, Hamburg • 2019: "Werner Berges: Also sometimes like that", Villa Goecke, Krefeld

Group exhibitions (selection)

Werner Berges exhibited his works in over 200 domestic and foreign exhibitions. He also designed the cover for Mousse T's album "Gourmet de Funk".

Awards

Works in museums (selection)

Exhibition catalogs (selection)

  • Berges in Berlin: Pictures, watercolors and drawings 1963 - 1977. Markgräfler Museum, Müllheim 1998. Exhibition catalog, 78 pp.
  • Berges in Baden: Pictures, watercolors and drawings 1977-1998 . Markgräfler Museum, Müllheim 1998, ISBN 3-00-002733-5 . Exhibition catalog, 84 pp.
  • Werner Berges. Pop Art. Works 1965 - 1977. Exhibition at the Museum der Stadt Ratingen from March 26th to May 1st 2000 and Kunstverein Münsterland e. V. from May 5 to July 23, 2000. Kunstverein Münsterland, Coesfeld 2000, ISBN 3-926538-36-8 .
  • Erika Davis-Klemm (Ed.): Catalog for the exhibition “A lot of people”. DavisKlemmGallery - Verlag, Frankfurt 2008.
  • Erika Davis-Klemm (Ed.): Werner Berges: The Artist's Cut. DavisKlemmGallery - Verlag, Frankfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-9814872-0-6 .
  • Erika Davis-Klemm (Ed.): Werner Berges: Collagen. DavisKlemmGallery - Verlag, Wiesbaden 2013, ISBN 978-3-9814872-1-3

literature

  • Jürgen Weichardt : Werner Berges - development and interpretation of his work . In: Yearbook for the Oldenburger Münsterland 1970 . Vechta 1969, pp. 179–186 ( online )
  • Tobias Kaufhold: In search of the lost form. Werner Berges and Pop Art . Depelmann, Langenhagen 1998, ISBN 3-928330-25-X . At the same time: Bochum, university, dissertation.
  • Werner Berges. Pictures, watercolors and drawings 1982 - 1990 . Edition Domberger, Freiburg 1990, ISBN 3-922646-08-5 .
  • Catalog raisonné of the graphic. Isensee Verlag, Oldenburg 2002, ISBN 3-89598-876-6 .
  • Artists - Critical Lexicon of Contemporary Art . ZEIT Kunstverlag, Munich 2010, KLG - 2010, issue 92, 4th quarter
  • Wolfgang Klika: Werner Berges 23.9. until November 4, 2012 - Documentation for the exhibition in Damme - Lohne - Steinfeld . Verlag Wolfgang K. Klika (klikabook.de), Damme 2012, ISBN 978-3-937561-05-9
  • Astrid Ihle: Werner Berges. The Pop Art years in: Werner Berges. Prints from the 1960s and 1970s , Ludwigshafen 2014, ISBN 978-3-86832-236-1
  • Martin Feltes / Sarah Siebert: Opening with 200 guests in the Kunsthalle Cloppenburg. 50 works by pop art artist Werner Berges . In: Kulturland Oldenburg (Ed .: Oldenburgische Landschaft). Issue 4.2016 (issue 170), p. 26f.

Web links

Commons : Werner Berges  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Announcement on the DavisKlemmGallery website
  2. ^ Marie Luise Otten in: Werner Berges. Pop Art. Works 1965 - 1977. Kunstverein Münsterland eV, 2000.
  3. ^ Retrospective Großgörschen 35. Großgörschen 35 Berlin and the Senator for Science and Art, Berlin 1968. ([56 sheets]). In the rooms of the Gallery of the 20th Century October 31 - November 24, 1968.
  4. ↑ Großgörschen 35 birthday: 1964–1989, Galerie Eva Poll Berlin. Galerie Poll, Berlin 1989. ([20 sheets]) ( POLLeditions ; Vol. 21).
  5. ^ Stefan Tolksdorf in: Artists. Critical lexicon of contemporary art. Werner Berges. Munich 2010.
  6. ^ Stefan Tolksdorf in: Artists. Critical lexicon of contemporary art. Werner Berges. Munich 2010.
  7. ↑ Interview with Werner Berges in: Artists. Critical lexicon of contemporary art. Munich 2010. Therein: Stefan Tolksdorf: Werner Berges.
  8. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Members "B" / Werner Berges (accessed on January 12, 2016)
  9. ↑ Sigrid Lünemann: Werner Berges - a Cloppenburger brought Pop Art to Germany . In: The city magazine for Cloppenburg & around . Edition April 24, 2018, p. 18, accessed September 19, 2018
  10. ↑ Tobias Kaufhold: In search of the lost form. Werner Berges and Pop Art. Depelmann, Langenhagen 1998
  11. ^ Marie Luise Otten in: Werner Berges. Pop Art. Works 1965 - 1977. Kunstverein Münsterland eV, 2000.
personal data
SURNAME Berges, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pop art artist
DATE OF BIRTH December 7, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Cloppenburg
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 2017
Place of death Schallstadt