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T his group of works from a private collection in Germany, is representative of A. R. Penck’s complex world of systems and ancient symbols.
In the early 1960s, Penck created the termStandart to describe his distinctive pictorial style, a language dominated by systems.
Combining “standard” and “art”, the term represented a universally accessible aesthetic, a standard art for all that addressed complex, sociopolitical themes.
“Every Standart can be imitated and reproduced and can thus become the property of every individual. What we have here is a true democratisation of art”
- A.R. Penck cited in: Oliver Basciano, ‘A.R. Penck Obituary’, The Guardian, 5 May 2017, online
Exiled from East Germany in 1980 and expatriated to the West, the present works were executed at a time when Penck was feeling the extreme effects of isolation and dislocation, and his works, as a result, reflected this shift and reexamination of his unique, pictorial language. This time period marked an important evolution of Penck’s compositional and conceptual output, leading him to international recognition and success.
In confronting his turbulent past, Penck used painting as a way of codifying and communicating both his personal experiences and ideological theories.
Praised alongside fellow Neo-Expressionists like Sigmar Polke and Anselm Kiefer, A. R. Penck, today, is recognized for his ultimate achievement and compositional investigation, exploring the balance between pictorial figuration and abstraction, removed completely from the influence of his former peers’ philosophies and aesthetics, and in his own unique, non-traditional fashion.
