Albert Oehlen

Private Collection, Graz

Graz, Künstlerhaus Graz, Der Übel, January 1987

Colours: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is deeper and less pale. Condition: This work is in very good condition.
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In the winter of 1986/87 the German artist Albert Oehlen spends several months in the Austrian city of Graz. There he works intensively on a new series of new paintings of which the present lot is currently offered for sale. The painting gives an impressive sight of Oehlen´s art, combining abstract and figurative elements in a complex and expressive manner of layering. He would follow his new idea of  "postungegenständliche" (post-non-figurative) art throughout the next decade.

In January 1987 the Kunstverein Graz organizes a solo show with Oehlen where he presents his new works in which also the above mentioned painting was exhibited.

For this important exhibition in Graz the catalogue "Der Übel" was published. Containing signed lithographs by Oehlen even the catalogue itself has become a much cherished collector's item.

Oehlen, born in 1954, studied with Sigmar Polke in Hamburg. In the 1980s he is part of the famous German movement of the Junge (Neue) Wilde. This group of painters including Jörg Immendorff, A.R. Penck and Martin Kippenberger, only to mention a few, successfully redefined the medium of painting after it seemed to be almost displaced by Minimal and Conceptual Art.