Sale: 534 / Contemporary Art Day Sale, Dec. 09. 2022 in Munich Lot 164

 

164
A. R. Penck (d.i. Ralf Winkler)
Pentagon, Ca. 1981/1985.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,400
Sold:
€ 46,875 / $ 50,625

(incl. surcharge)
Pentagon. Ca. 1981/1985.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in lower right. 80 x 100 cm (31.4 x 39.3 in).

• Both logic and taxonomy in A. R. Penck's sign language are one-of-a-kind in German post-war art.
• In 1984 A. R. Penck showed his works at the German pavilion at the Venice Biennial.
• Works by A. R. Penck are part of the collectionsof the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
.

PROVENANCE: Private collection Southern Germany.

The partly alienated stick figures are Penck's trademark and call strong reminiscence of figures found in prehistoric cave painting. The present work, scattered with enigmatic pictograms in striking colors, also has such an effect. The pictograms belong to a cipher language that the artist began to develop in 1960 while he still lived in the former GDR. This is Penck’s approach compile a catalog of signs that allows him to represented the current world in an abbreviated and concise manner. The artist remais disclosed about the decoding, the formal language must be deciphered by the viewers themselves. [EH]



164
A. R. Penck (d.i. Ralf Winkler)
Pentagon, Ca. 1981/1985.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,400
Sold:
€ 46,875 / $ 50,625

(incl. surcharge)