(Bleckede/Elbe 1945–2007 Düsseldorf)
“Staat/Formel”, titled, signed and dated Immendorff 92/93, oil on canvas, 200 x 280 cm, framed

The present work is going to be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Jörg Immendorff’s paintings by Siegfried Gohr.

Provenance:
From an Austrian Collection

“Jörg Immendorff’s images are full of symbols, so to understand his paintings and sculptures, a knowledge of the main symbols is necessary. Many of these, such as fire, torches, candles or car, are immediately accessible: they stand for life, immortality, emotions, enlightenment, death or destruction. Others [...] must be interpreted in context: “the bee – found at the top of the present work in blue, on the fan of the green-headed man on the left edge, and on the long black coat of the gentleman in the back room – was for the artist “a sensitive, thought-provoking creature.”

“Probably the most significant animal in Immendorff’s imagery is the monkey.” The monkey – present in at least in two of his “Staat/Formel” painted sculptures – was “as Immendorff repeatedly stated, a symbol of his second self: a symbol of the ambivalence of the artist’s existence between conviction and self-doubt. It is at once silly and wise, and stands for opposites. [...] The monkey, in Immendorff’s visual language, is an intelligent animal. [...] In general, we can say that Immendorff’s pictures, alongside their realistic content, also open up a world of imagination. In this surreal world, we must enter [...] in order to be changed.”

In numerous works by Immendorff “appear the artist’s friends (Beuys, Baselitz, Lüpertz, Penck) and role models (Giorgio de Chirico, Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Marcel Duchamp), gallery owners and patrons, art historians (Rudi Fuchs) and philosophers (Marx), politicians (Mao, Lenin), political emblems (swastika, hammer and sickle, red star), or quotations alluding to certain forms of state. Immendorff consciously blurs the time frames and embeds image quotes and space into each other [...]. [...] Duchamp, Beuys, Immendorff– three names, three eras, three different worldviews. They are connected through art. Immendorff “was an extremely well-read artist. He was not only well versed in the visual arts; politics and culture were also part of his everyday life. His sovereign attitude made possible exploration of artworks, literature, operas and other works of others. Thus he was able to lead us in both real and virtual dialogue with artists of other countries.

Even though he didn’t know them all personally, Duchamp, Kirchner, and Beckmann were among the ‘soul mates’ he integrated into his works.” A particularly intimate friendship connected Immendorff with his fellow painters from the Galerie Michael Werner in Cologne, especially legendary being his association with A R Penck, whom he met for the first time in East Berlin in the seventies.

In the present work, we find the following persons from left to right in the background: Jörg Immendorff (with fan), Arthur Rimbaud (with plane), Georg Baselitz (in red-brown suit with a black beard), André Breton (with green-blue head and red tie), Joseph Beuys (with hat and vest), Heiner Müller (with cigar and glasses). From left to right in the foreground: Henrik Ibsen (in white shirt with tattooed onion on his arm), Curzio Malaparte (with his book, “Kaputt”), Giorgio De Chirico (in brown suit), Rudi Fuchs (with green sweater) and Jean-Paul Sartre (in white shirt with spectacles).

“So we come full circle: the ‘art monkeys’ look at the artists in their eyes, and look at the political facts in the eyes [...]. Maybe these little monkeys will save some of these things for posterity, these things that are transpiring together with us, the audience, on the ‘stage of history’.”
(Immendorff. Malerei 1983-1990, Galerie der Stadt Esslingen Villa Merkel/MUMOK, Exhibition catalogue pp. 11-12, 53-54 Jörg Immendorff. Was uns Malerei bedueten kann, Essl Museum, Exhibition catalogue pp. 55, 57)