Günther Förg - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Friday, October 16, 2009 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from the artist.

  • Catalogue Essay

    For German abstract painter Günther Förg, clear geometric forms and monochromatic fields of colour take on the central roles which pervade his painted works. While it seems natural to consider Förg a minimalist painter, the examination of the range of his work, however, demonstrates Förg's dual purposes. His mimicry of minimalism is indeed an homage, but it also strives to highlight the failure of modernist ideals. Förg's fascination is shared with many German artists of his Post-War generation. The aftermath of World War II left younger generations struggling with ambivalence toward their own cultural legacy. This dilemma, though not always directly expressed in the content, plays a central role in his work. Förg's work attempts to reassess the positive impulse that drove modern art, art based on paring down colour, shape and line to a crucial essence, by using its devices.
    'Förg wishes to see his abstract work freed from any moral or religious considerations, which have often served as the foundation for abstract art. His work intends to give pleasure via their airiness, via an optical presence that does not shy away from beauty. His paintings have a clear metaphysical orientation towards light and the vertical... The beauty in Förg's work is that which we carry within us, that which first allows things in the world to appear at all beautiful to us. Deeply felt beauty inevitably tears open a gap between reality and metaphysical totality.' (R. Grass, To the builders, in exhibition catalogue, Gunther Forg, Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, 2003, n.p.)    

31

Untitled

2000
Acrylic on canvas.
200 x 220 cm. (78 3/4 x 86 7/8 in).
Signed 'FöRG' upper right; Signed and dated 'FöRG 2000' on the reverse.

Estimate
£25,000 - 35,000 ‡♠

Sold for £30,000

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

17 Oct 2009
London