Martin Kippenberger

Michel Würthle, Berlin
Galerie Hauser & Wirth, Zurich
Private Collection, Switzerland

Colour: (i) The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the pink and blue tones are more pastel in the original. (ii) The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is lighter and contains fewer magenta undertones in the original. (iii) The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the face tends more towards a soft yellow, and the orange in the orange in the upper right corner is actually a mustard yellow. (iv) The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly lighter in the original. (v) The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly lighter and the background tends more towards a soft mint green in the original. Condition: (i) This work is in very good condition. There is evidence of very light wear to the extreme lower edge of the frame. Extremely close inspection reveals a few tiny and unobtrusive fly spots scattered along the lower edge of the canvas, and to the upper right facing edge of the frame. (ii) This work is in very good condition. There is evidence of light wear to the extreme outer edges of the canvas and of the frame in places. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals two specks that fluoresce darker in the upper two corner tips. (iii) This work is in very good condition. There is evidence of very light wear in places to the extreme outer edge of the frame. Extremely close inspection reveals a few tiny and unobtrusive fly spots scattered in places. (iv) This work is in very good condition. Extremely close inspection reveals three very thin, unobtrusive and stable hairline cracks: one towards the centre of the upper half, and two towards the centre of the lower left quadrant. Further extremely close inspection reveals a few tiny and unobtrusive fly spots scattered along the lower edge of the canvas. Visible only under ultraviolet light, there are three minute specks of retouching: two in the upper corner tips and one towards the lower right corner. (v) This work is in very good condition. Extremely close inspection reveals very thin and unobtrusive hairline cracks and pinprick-sized broken impasto peaks in the thicker areas of paint. There are a few pinprick-sized fly-spots in towards the centre of the upper right quadrant.
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Forming a linear narrative from Martin Kippenberger’s paintings in the early 1980s, through to his explorations of sculpture and into his magnum opus The Happy End of Franz Kafka’s “Amerika,” the Peter works form an important narrative thread throughout Kippenberger’s enigmatic oeuvre. The sheer diversity with which he applied his idiosyncratic notion of the ‘Peter’ principle in painting, sculpture, installations and his daily life, are as characteristic for his work in general as for his interest in notions of failure and dysfunction.

The ‘Peter’ denominator was first used as an open-ended and generic reference to imaginary figures. Over the following years, however, the artist introduced the suffix ‘–peter’ in his everyday speech as a label to identify the particular characteristics of a person, object or event (a baker would become a Brötchenpeter or ‘rolls guy’). As Diedrich Diedrichsen explained: “To the extent that someone was a Peter, he was reducible – or reduced himself – to a kind of brand. The Peter-ness of an object or person contained their willingness to carry themselves to market” (Exhibition Catalogue, Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective, 2008-2009, p. 120). Kippenberger realised that his artistic concerns would inevitably also reduce his own work into a Peter-ness, despite never having formulated a recognisable style. Peter-Series perfectly encapsulates the diversity of the artist’s oeuvre with a wide range of subjects including a still-life, a portrait made of a macaroni, a figure showering upside-down, a cartoon-like drawing of a police-man and an angry executive. The stylistic differences, the quirky subjects and dry humour, make the series an excellent example of Kippenberger’s work, and indeed of his own Peter-ness.

The artist’s fascination with the Peter theme would carry on into his first major sculptural body of work for an exhibition at Max Hetzler in 1987, titled Peter: Die russische Stellung (Peter: The Russian position), which would also form the basis for the artist’s last major exhibition The Happy End of Franz Kafka’s “Amerika,” three years before his premature death in 1994. As part of this recurring leitmotif of Kippenberger’s oeuvre, the five paintings of Peter-Series epitomise one of the artist’s most imaginative bodies of work, and encapsulate his original painterly language.