(born Dresden in 1939)
‘TX’, 1987, signed, titled a. r. penck TX, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 140 cm, framed, (PS)

Provenance:
Galerie Andreas Binder, Munich – acquired there by the current owner in 1989

A.R. Penck made highly scientific demands of his works. The predominantly male figures and totemic forms are not just reminiscent of the stick figures and primitive symbols in prehistoric cave painting, they are also deliberations on mathematics, cybernetics and mechanics. It is not the beautiful and fascinating aspects of the spatial experience that encourage Penck to create, but rather the phenomena within the space, and their role in separating or unifying. He captures moments as principles, in the form of graphic representations, vectors and force fields, permeating and determining one another. He succeeds not only in reducing the world to symbols, particularly in series such as Standart T (x), but also comprehending it in the form of symbols.

“A work is only a Standart when its structure is so simple that it can be perceived and imitated by everyone.“

( A.R. Penck, Eine Reminiszenz an A.R. Penck (Ralf Winkler,) Der Dresdner Maler Wolfgang Opitz befragt von Asteris Kutulas, spring 1989, s221292458.online.de/Texte/AR-Penck/AR-Penck02.txt)