Contemporary German Art

German art
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Late Gothic altar by Tilman Riemenschneider

German art has a long and distinguished tradition in the visual arts, from the earliest
known work of figurative art to its current output of contemporary art.

Germany has only been united into a single state since the 19th century, and defining its
borders has been a notoriously difficult and painful process. For earlier periods German
art often effectively includes that produced in German-speaking
regions including Austria, Alsace and much of Switzerland, as well as largely German-speaking
cities or regions to the east of the modern German borders.

Contents

1 Prehistory to Late Antiquity
2 Middle Ages
3 Renaissance painting and prints
4 Sculpture
5 17th to 19th-century painting
5.1 Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassicism
5.2 Writing about art
5.3 Romanticism and the Nazarenes
5.4 Naturalism and beyond
6 20th century
6.1 Weimar period
6.2 Art in the Third Reich
7 Post WWII art
8 Notes
9 References
10 Further reading

Top 10 Most Expensive Living German Artists

Gerhard Richter Photo: Hans Peter Schaefer via Wikimedia Commons

Gerhard Richter
Photo: Hans Peter Schaefer via Wikimedia Commons

In the second installment of our series of the world's most expensive living artists, we focus on the Germans. Artists from the country have seen unprecedented success in recent years. And high-flying auction results have been spread relatively evenly across media, if not between the sexes.

Perhaps most interestingly, however, all of the Germans in our top 10 achieved their best prices during or after the great recession of 2008. The country's penchant for stringent conceptualism and a highly art historical approach likely proves a safe bet for value retention regardless of economic conditions. Looking forward, however, it also likely means we haven't even begun to hit the peak of where the German market could go.
Gerhard Richter, Domplatz, Mailand(Cathedral Square, Milan) (1968)

Gerhard Richter, Domplatz, Mailand (Cathedral Square, Milan) (1968)

1. Gerhard Richter
Richter's dominance of the market for German art is almost unthinkable. Scrolling a list of the top 500 results ever achieved by living artists from the country, one would be forgiven for missing the few other names that appear. Then again, the artist did near singlehandedly revolutionize the medium of painting in Europe in the postwar period, attacking both fuzzy figuration and squeegeed abstraction with equal alacrity.

Richter's paintings hold the first 53 spots on artnet's ranking of top achieving German lots, 33 of which achieved prices over $10 million. He's the only living German artist to have passed that eight-figure mark. Richter's 1968 canvas Domplatz, Mailand (Cathedral Square, Milan) holds the top place, however. It sold for $37,125,000 (all prices include buyer's premium) at Sotheby's May 2013 sale of contemporary art.
Georg Baselitz, Spekulatius (1964)

Georg Baselitz, Spekulatius (1964)

2. Georg Baselitz
Richter's contemporary (and sometimes rival), Baselitz displays a more interdisciplinary oeuvre than his more lucrative companion. Baselitz is best known for his sexualized portraits which often see their subjects turned upside down, as well as rough-hewn sculptures, which he carves with a chain saw directly into massive tree trunks. Lately, however, he's been nearly as famous for his misogyny, telling Der Spiegel in 2013 that women simply can't paint. His top auction result was for Spekulatius (1964), which sold for £3,233,250 ($5,195,645) at Sotheby's London in June 2011.
Andreas Gursky, Rhein II (1999)

Andreas Gursky, Rhein II (1999)

3. Andreas Gursky
Despite painting's firm grip on the hearts (and wallets) of most collectors, Dusseldorf-based Gursky has managed to grab unprecedented market weight for a photographer. Not only did the $4,338,500 result for his 1999 work Rhein II make him the third most expensive living German artist, but it also topped the all-time record for the medium of photography as a whole. Like much of Gursky's oeuvre, the work taps into the German informel tradition through its use of geometric patterns—in this case, grass, a small path, the Rhine River, the far river bank, and the sky—without at all obscuring its subject.
Thomas Schutte, Grosse Geist No.16

Thomas Schütte, Grosse Geist No. 16 (2000)

4. Thomas Schütte
Not far behind Gursky, Schütte's over eight-foot-tall aluminum sculpture Grosse Geist No. 16 (2000) made $4,114,500 at what was then Phillips de Pury's November 2010 New York sale, putting him in 4th place on our ranking. The work is one of three casts, one each having also been created in steel and polished bronze. A student of Gerhard Richter, Schütte's practice runs the gamut from small works on paper to massive sculptural installations and monuments.
Anselm Kiefer, Dem unbekannten Maler (To the unknown painter) (1983)

Anselm Kiefer, Dem unbekannten Maler (To the unknown painter) (1983)

5. Anselm Kiefer
Out of the entire top 10, Kiefer's work deals perhaps most directly with his home country's dark past. Born just months before the end of the Second World War, his practice delves deeply into the postwar consciousness and attempts to reckon with horrors committed by his parents' generation. Yet, surprisingly, he's one of only two artists in our list who no longer lives in Germany, having opted for life in Paris instead. Topping Kiefer's auction history is Dem unbekannten Maler (To the unknown painter) (1983), which sold for $3,554,500 at Christie's New York's May 2011 evening sale of postwar and contemporary art. The painting is one of three of the same name, which Kiefer painted between 1982 and 1983. Its acrylic and shellac counterpart sold for £366,400 ($678,518) at Sotheby's London in June 2006, while the corresponding watercolor was sold at the house's New York locale in 1990 for $77,000.
Neo Rauch, Platz (Square) (2000)

Neo Rauch, Platz (Square) (2000)

6. Neo Rauch
The market for Neo Rauch hit a new peak just this past February at Christie's London with Platz (Square) (2000) grabbing £1,058,500 ($1,761,231). The work, which typifies Rauch's mix of Socialist Realist and Surrealist tropes, was purchased from a 2000 show at Berlin and Leipzig's Eigen+Art, which has long championed the artist's work. Tip: If you happen to be near his hometown of Aschersleben, check out Rauch's recently created Grafikstiftung (print foundation) in which he's placing one edition of every one of his prints.
Gunther Uecker, Haar der Nymphen (1964)

Günther Uecker, Haar der Nymphen (1964)

7. Günther Uecker
The only member of the Zero Group on our list, the market for Dusseldorf-based Uecker's early work has seen such an upsurge of late that the artist stepped in to take more control over where works from the '50s and '60s are headed (at least those out of his still-notable reserves). His 1964 work Haar der Nymphen, sold in February 2010 at Sotheby's London for £825,250 ($1,295,119). The piece is exemplary of Uecker's most famous series of works in which he uses hundreds of nails to form abstract, often swirling compositions on panels.
Thomas Struth, Pantheon, Rome (1990)

Thomas Struth, Pantheon, Rome (1990)

8. Thomas Struth
The second photographer to make our list, Struth has recently been noted for his intricately detailed photographs of technology. It's his early works, reminiscent of the deadpan look of his teachers Bernd and Hilla Becher that have most tickled the market's fancy, however. His top lot, Pantheon, Rome was shot in 1990 and printed in 1992. It sold for £818,500 ($1,254,790) at Sotheby's London in June 2013. The work is notable for its soft, painterly focus and minimal contrast, the latter of which remains a hallmark of Struth's technique to this day.
Rosemarie Trockel, O.T. (Made in Western Germany) (1987)

Rosemarie Trockel, O.T. (Made in Western Germany) (1987)

9. Rosemarie Trockel
No doubt pushed along by the New Museum's major retrospective of Trockel's work in fall of 2012, the only female artist on our list has seen a steady uptick in her market over recent years. This February, as part of a swath of heady sales during the London auctions, Trockel's O.T. (Made in Western Germany) (1987) sold for £722,500 ($1,189,692). The work had previously sold at Art Basel 2012 for a reported $1 million.
Albert Oehlen, Untitled (1994)

Albert Oehlen, Untitled (1994)

10. Albert Oehlen
A list of pricey German contemporary art wouldn't be complete without a member of the Neue Wilde who brought the country's painting scene back on track in the 1980s. A close associate of the late Martin Kippenberger, Oehlen takes a more process-oriented approach in his wildly gestural abstract canvases. At Sotheby's New York in May 2012, a rare to market untitled painting of Oehlen's from 1994 shot past its high estimate of $500,000 to make $722,500.

Top 10 Emerging German Artists
http://theculturetrip.com/europe/germany/articles/top-10-emerging-german-artists-you-should-know/

https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/bku/ser/lin/lbk.html

Links

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http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/tag/germany/

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New German art - continued

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Nicole Wermers
German art now - Nicole Wermers

Born in 1971, Nicole Wermers' artistic practice encompasses collage, sculpture and an amalgamation of each of these disciplines into what she terms 'three-dimensional collage'.

Similarly to Claudia Wieser (previous page), Wermers reflects on the history of modernism by envisaging its potential impact on functional everyday objects.

Typical of this interest is Wermers' series of upright ashtrays (above), which vacillate between utilitarian function and delicate sculptural intent. In other 'collages', shaped items of furniture are systematically nested and interlocked in order to echo the formal qualities of geometric abstraction.
New German art - Nicole Wermers
images © Nicole Wermers

In more recent works, Wermers has focused on sculptural steel hoops that reference the anti-theft alarm gates found at store exits (left), thus providing the tantalising possibility of alternative designs for these overlooked, ubiquitous devices.

Tjorg Douglas Beer
German artists - Tjorg Douglas Beer

Having exhibited since 2001 this Hamburg/New York based artist is no newcomer to the German art scene, but over the last couple of years interest in his work has risen steadily.

The combination of media in his paintings and sculpture is matched by a profusion of narrative strands, many approaching far more polemical territory - politics; race; religion - than his decorative, faux-naive style would immediately suggest.

This is reinforced by the curious texts that often appear in Douglas Beer's work: written backwards, they indicate an earnest attempt to mirror reality, albeit in fantastical, Alice's looking glass form.
New art from Germany - Tjorg Douglas Beer
images © Tjorg Douglas Beer

Julian Göthe
Julian Göthe
images © Julian Gšthe

A series of recent sculptures by multidisciplinary artist Julian Göthe resemble more or less familiar objects: chess pieces; Japanese toy robots; perfume bottles or even, in passing, sculptural precedents such as Jacob Epstein's Rock Drill.

Despite such visual familiarities, however, the works remain elusive, their presence a disconcerting fusion of spiky ornamentation and glossy black monumentality.

Context is ostensibly provided by the detailed drawings that usually accompany their installation, but even these produce, rather than assuage uncertainty by casting his sculptures as enormous idols from a mysterious religion; silent protagonists enmeshed in bizarre storylines.

The space between the recognisable and the obscure is one that Göthe characteristically fills, lacing his work with cryptically sinuous personal allusion.

Given the theatricality of many of his pieces, it's no surprise to learn that he has also worked as a set-designer, his ability to atmospherically alter space put to increasingly dramatic effect.

Kerstin Brätsch
German contemporary art now: Kerstin Braetsch

Young German artist Kerstin Brätsch moves as fluidly between individual and collective practice as she does between mediums, creating ventures, partnerships and objects that not only provide various platforms for her artistic production, but constitute a key facet its concerns.

Her sculptures, for example, can serve as distribution centres for 'zines and photocopied publications, (left) while her large-scale paintings - in themselves highly accomplished works (below) - double as backdrops for performance and staged actions.

In 2007, Brätsch founded DAS INSTITUT together with fellow German artist Adele Röder. Predicating itself as a kind of trading company, DAS INSTITUT creates products such as posters, prints, silkscreened fabrics and stickers, with the marketing, branding and commercial aspects of its operation seen as integral to artistic function.

With her decentred and highly flexible approach to art production, Brätsch is one of a new generation of artists infiltrating social and cultural structures formerly seen as outside the remit of fine art, widening relationships between mediums, the world, and other practitioners.
New German painting
images © Kerstin Brätsch


Alexandra Hopf
contemporary German art: Alexandra Hopf

Alexandra Hopf works in a variety of disciplines including painting, collage, installation and the unusual medium of painting on glass.

Much of her art has a dream-like, intangible quality that seems to particularly reflect her interest in psychoanalysis, one of several concerns that Hopf explores in her practice.

Animal-human hybrids emerge from shadow, their appearance, though startling, curiously in tune with the logic of the unconscious.

In other works, shafts of light pierce the gloom, partially revealing half-hidden motifs that often seem drawn from modernist geometrical structure.
new contemporary art from Germany - Alexandra Hopf
images © Alexandra Hopf

Perhaps inevitably, however, the prevailing tone in her two-dimensional works is of late 19th century Symbolism, a trait that's particularly noticeable in the pastel whorls of cloud and bug-eyed beasties that are more reminiscent of certain works by Odilon Redon than even, perhaps, Hopf herself has realised.

Volker Hueller
Volker Hueller, contemporary German painting

Born in 1976, Hueller's trajectory to success has been rapid.

Spotted while still a student at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts and invited to participate in various group shows, Hueller was considered a fast-emerging talent even before graduating in 2008.

Several major solo shows later, and his international reputation is well and truly established.

It's not hard to see why. Hueller's highly assured, multi-layered painting encompasses both semi- and pure abstraction. The fantastical imaginings of his more figurative works appear to flow directly from the unconscious, authentic outpourings reminiscent of the inspired creativity of the outsider artist.

His abstract works - which to our mind, are among his best - combine shades of richly subtle colour and collage in beautifully wrought composition.
new German painters: Volker Hueller
images © Volker Hueller


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