On the death of Jörg Immendorff

On May 28th the renowned German painter Jörg Immendorff died aged 61 of ALS, a disease of the nervous system. Niklas Maak portrays the painter. "He didn't give a hoot about good taste. The elements of voluptuous semi-decay, fear-inspiring magenta, naïve contortion and crooked greasiness that hurt the eye also save some of his pictures from the monotonous, mild conformity and the weakly humming pathos of contemporary German painting. His portrait of Gerhard Schröder presents the Gazprom employee in gold and accompanied by monkeys - an allegorical painting by the artist... Notwithstanding his chummy leather-jacketed public appearances and all the cocaine and bordello scandals, he was the one who in the late 1960s ruthlessly dismantled his image as a heroic artist, all the work on his own artist's myth, and tried to create a different kind of art and change the way it was perceived. This is what made him important and earned him our respect."

» full article (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Fine Arts, » Germany
All available articles from » Niklas Maak

» To the complete press review of Tuesday, May 29, 2007