GÜNTHER FÖRG | Hommage à Le Corbusier

Galerie Rackey, Bad Honnef
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2000

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly brighter in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Each sheet is laid down verso in numerous places to the backing board. One horizontal edge of each sheet is deckled. There's slight undulation to some of the sheets. Extremely close inspection reveals some tiny spots of abrasion to the extreme edges of a few of the sheets and a few tiny creases to the extreme corner tips of a few of the sheets.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Executed in 2000, Hommage à Le Corbusier consists of twenty three chromatic panels aligned in formation; a regiment of identical rectangular sheets of paper painted in pure unadulterated pigment. Following on from Förg’s acclaimed series of Lead Paintings, begun in the late 1980s, the present work references avant-garde architecture and the Modernist grid to interrogate the parameters of painting and sculpture. As the title infers, the present work takes its formal inspiration – both in composition and colour – from the leading master of twentieth-century architectural design, Le Corbusier. The captivating spectacle of regimented blocks of colour in the present work, is redolent of the great tranches of colour that magnificently bisect and cascade across the acclaimed architect's brutalist apartment blocks. Moreover, the portrait, rectangular formation of the panels in Hommage à Le Corbusier perfectly encapsulate his infamous Five Points of Architecture, which lays out the point that buildings should be designed to have long, rectangular strips of windows to imbue the space with spectacular vistas. Displaying an inherently formalist preoccupation with construction and seriality, Hommage à Le Corbusier unites surfaces of ebony, off-white, deep crimson, pacified azure, fleshy peach, muted saffron and a panoply of rich, heady colours. As a whole, the sequence is made coherent by parallel horizontal bisections of colour, which tightly unite the works. Entrenched in the history of Modernism, the jet-black abyss is redolent of Suprematist Kazimir Malevich, while the voids of white indicate an allegiance to Robert Ryman as well as the precursor to such artistic practices: John Cage’s 4’33”, a symphony of silence composed in 1952. Furthermore, Förg’s affiliation with colour and composition undoubtedly reference the revolutionary work of Abstract Expressionist giants, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. However, while his predecessors produced immense canvases with a metaphysical and spiritual quality, Förg manufactured an entire series devoid of painterly finesse, neither auratic nor sublime.

In this respect, Förg’s inimitable style occupies a complex juncture between the work of Donald Judd and Georg Baselitz. The present work’s visible brushstrokes and expressionist gestural handling belongs to a previous generation of German painters while the seriality of Förg’s chromatic panels are symptomatic of a factory line form of production; herein, Förg’s machine-like fabrication follows an inherently Minimalist trajectory. Examining the legacy of Modernist painting in a postmodern age, Förg’s procession of autonomous panels contradict the concerns of his German contemporaries, the Neue Wilden, who found motivation in mythology and figuration. Hallmarking a defiant reinvigoration of formal abstraction, Förg reaffirms a Modernist genealogy with a materially imposing means of investigating the limitations of pictorial reality. Hommage à Le Corbusier is a paradigm of Förg’s extraordinary opus and reaffirms his rank among the most influential painterly voices of the late Twentieth Century.



This work is recorded in the archive of Günther Förg as No. WVF.00.P.0188. We thank Mr. Michael Neff from the Estate of Günther Förg for the information he has kindly provided on this work.