Georg Herold: Kunstverein Hannover.Among the West German artists who came into prominence in the '80s, Georg Herold somehow missed out on the international notoriety of his friends and occasional collaborators Martin Kippenberger Martin Kippenberger (b. 25 February 1953 in Dortmund- d. 7 March 1997 in Vienna) was an influential German artist whose penchant for mischievousness made him the focus of a generation of German enfants terrible and Albert Oehlen Albert Oehlen (born in 1954, in Krefeld) is a German artist. Albert Oehlen graduated at the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst, Hamburg, in 1978. Closely associated with the Cologne art scene, he was a member of the Lord Jim Lodge along with Martin Kippenberger among others. . Until now, no exhibition has covered Herold's entire career in depth. Though this traveling retrospective happily corrects the oversight, it is disappointing that it won't be seen outside the German-speaking countries; Herold deserves a bigger audience. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Like many established German artists, Herold grew up in the East and made his reputation in the West, having studied art on both sides of the Iron Curtain Iron Curtain Political, military, and ideological barrier erected by the Soviet Union after World War II to seal off itself and its dependent eastern European allies from open contact with the West and other noncommunist areas. . This schizoid schizoid /schiz·oid/ (skit´soid) 1. denoting the traits that characterize the schizoid personality. 2. background has always shaped his work, which frequently sets its critical sights on the reigning symbols of the socialist and capitalist systems. In his 1985 bueressante Kunst aus Westdeutschland (Interesting Art from West Germany West Germany: see Germany. ), four bricks cemented together end-to-end droop awkwardly from a canvas covered in a beige wash, the earthy brown calling to mind Beuys while the protrusion protrusion /pro·tru·sion/ (-troo´zhun) 1. extension beyond the usual limits, or above a plane surface. 2. the state of being thrust forward or laterally, as in masticatory movements of the mandible. visually puns on the cliched cli·chéd also cliched adj. Having become stale or commonplace through overuse; hackneyed: "In the States, it might seem a little clichéd; in Paris, it seems fresh and original" machismo machismo Exaggerated pride in masculinity, perceived as power, often coupled with a minimal sense of responsibility and disregard of consequences. In machismo there is supreme valuation of characteristics culturally associated with the masculine and a denigration of of much German art exported abroad. Along with bricks, another of Herold's favorite art materials Techniques and materials related to art: Traditional techniques:
Herold's clearly telegraphed jokes and clumsy-looking craftsmanship are deceptive; a subtle thought process lurks behind the apparent simplemindedness. His is a philosophical humor that relies on tautologies and clashing contrasts, inspired equally by Duchamp and Wittgenstein. J. C. Raspe, 1990, is a portrait of the Baader-Meinhof member done in caviar on canvas, one of several such images employing the pricey delicacy to reproduce ordinary media photos. Here the visage of a dedicated critic of capitalism is rendered via luxury goods, the painting itself comically appreciating through its production values Production values is a media term for "production cost." It refers to the professional look, or "polish," of a production. Factors that affect perceived production value may include video and audio quality, lighting, number of errors, and amount and quality of special effects. . In one of Herold's early lath pieces, Goethe-Latte, 1982, a two-meter length of wood leans against a wall next to another less than half its size. The name GOETHE is written on the longer one; the other carries the phrase im vergleich dazu irgendein scheiBer (roughly, "by comparison, some loser"). With minimal means, the piece speaks eloquently about, among other things, the perceived inaccessibility of cultural greatness under postmodernism. The thinking man behind Herold's self-projected image as a manipulator of wood and brick appears in several video works from the past five years, projects that bring his deliberately antiquated sculptural practice up to date without succumbing to the seductions of high technology. Teaching Sculpture III, 2001, captures the artist's furrowed brow in close-up as it moves up and down, the "thought wrinkles" attesting to a lifetime spent working through the tough problems of the discipline Herold teaches at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf. In a group of fifteen videos displayed on mini-televisions and collectively titled Angeboriger einer fremden Kultur (Member of a Foreign Culture), 2002, Herold sports a variety of outfits and hairstyles while playing sign-language interpreters. Not formally trained in the practice, he does a convincing job of parodying its characteristic hand gestures and facial expressions. As in all of Herold's work, art's limited capacity to "speak" is laid bare through humor; yet in assuming an intelligent viewer, his jokes lead to contemplation rather than expire in a short-lived burst of laughter. |
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