Pop, Irony and Seriousness
Albert Oehlen in conversation with Thomas Groetz about Martin Kippenberger
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TG: Could one also see something trophy-like in the Blaue Lagune, in other words, big game that the hunter kills, skins, and then proudly presents in his living-room?
AO: That's a splendid association; it certainly could have triggered a major project.
TG: The Sozialkistentransporter is also concerned with this yearning for Italy. It's represented here in the exhibition as a sculpture, and also as a painting. In its complexity, it's also a key work which can be interpreted in a number of ways - individuation, social dreams and their construction as containers and crates, stackable, easy to transport. The only question is: who is the gondolier? The Chancellor?
AO: When in doubt, always the Chancellor. No, it's a reference to the slang used in the communes at the time. [Crate = Kiste, apparently then used to mean "business", "goings-on"]. I don't know if anyone still talks like that. There were all sorts of Kisten. And, in those days, spaghetti was all they ever ate in the communes. That led automatically to Italy. And what do you think of when you think of Italy? The reason these works are so great is that they show, especially well, how he discovered a new and highly impressive plausibility.
TG: Plausibility in what respect?
AO: As I just described. What starts as a chain of associations, could also be a system.
TG: How much criticism of society or of the age can be seen in the thing?
AO: As much as you like - in the spirit of our plan at the time: namely, to generate in our pictures the potential for comprehensive orgies of interpretation - but definitely not in the spirit of the well-known forms of complaint used by socalled "critical" art.
TG: Does the theme of travel, of movement to something unknown, have any significance here?
AO: Where there's a vehicle in the picture, of course you always ask: where is it going? The significance pathos is so splendid that we don't really need to go into it any further. A solitary question mark has its own wonderful beauty.
TG: Who are the women in the 1984 tetralogy: Mechthild, Helen, Ulrike and Elisabeth actually? Are they from the series Deutsch-sprechende Galeristinnen? After all, a number of other artists were also involved in this concept. Can you say anything about this? And how do Kippenberger's pictures relate to the others?
AO: They are: Mechthild von Dannenberg, the then partner of Ascan Crone, Helen van der Mey and two other gallery-owners at that time. The lady at the bottom left looks like Tanja Grunert. The idea consists of nothing more than what you see - five painters, each with four portraits: Werner Büttner, Georg Herold, Martin, my brother Markus and me; each in his own way. Today I don't find this interesting at all, but some individual pictures were very good.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
TG: Could one also see something trophy-like in the Blaue Lagune, in other words, big game that the hunter kills, skins, and then proudly presents in his living-room?
AO: That's a splendid association; it certainly could have triggered a major project.
TG: The Sozialkistentransporter is also concerned with this yearning for Italy. It's represented here in the exhibition as a sculpture, and also as a painting. In its complexity, it's also a key work which can be interpreted in a number of ways - individuation, social dreams and their construction as containers and crates, stackable, easy to transport. The only question is: who is the gondolier? The Chancellor?
AO: When in doubt, always the Chancellor. No, it's a reference to the slang used in the communes at the time. [Crate = Kiste, apparently then used to mean "business", "goings-on"]. I don't know if anyone still talks like that. There were all sorts of Kisten. And, in those days, spaghetti was all they ever ate in the communes. That led automatically to Italy. And what do you think of when you think of Italy? The reason these works are so great is that they show, especially well, how he discovered a new and highly impressive plausibility.
TG: Plausibility in what respect?
AO: As I just described. What starts as a chain of associations, could also be a system.
TG: How much criticism of society or of the age can be seen in the thing?
AO: As much as you like - in the spirit of our plan at the time: namely, to generate in our pictures the potential for comprehensive orgies of interpretation - but definitely not in the spirit of the well-known forms of complaint used by socalled "critical" art.
TG: Does the theme of travel, of movement to something unknown, have any significance here?
AO: Where there's a vehicle in the picture, of course you always ask: where is it going? The significance pathos is so splendid that we don't really need to go into it any further. A solitary question mark has its own wonderful beauty.
TG: Who are the women in the 1984 tetralogy: Mechthild, Helen, Ulrike and Elisabeth actually? Are they from the series Deutsch-sprechende Galeristinnen? After all, a number of other artists were also involved in this concept. Can you say anything about this? And how do Kippenberger's pictures relate to the others?
AO: They are: Mechthild von Dannenberg, the then partner of Ascan Crone, Helen van der Mey and two other gallery-owners at that time. The lady at the bottom left looks like Tanja Grunert. The idea consists of nothing more than what you see - five painters, each with four portraits: Werner Büttner, Georg Herold, Martin, my brother Markus and me; each in his own way. Today I don't find this interesting at all, but some individual pictures were very good.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
Kippenberger
Hardcover, 29.7 x 42 cm (11.7 x 16.5 in.), 212 pages
$ 70.00
$ 70.00
A total of one hundred paintings, sculptures and drawings from two of the finest collections of the artist`s work in the world
artin Kippenberger / Albert Oehlen: Untitled, 1984