Martin Kippenberger : BITTESCHÖN DANKESCHÖN

Martin Kippenberger (1953–1997) was not only one of the most important German artists of his generation, he was also one of the most versatile. The epitome of the “typical artist,” he lived an indivisible symbiosis of life and creativity—intense, excessive and without regard for the personal consequences.

All his works can be described as self-portraits in the wider sense of the word and tell us something about the artist, his time and his environment. At first glance they seem informed by a carefree dilettantism, a strategy he used with his tongue firmly in cheek and great deliberation. Kippenberger’s work is marked by excessive, sometimes transgressive creativity, great empathy as well as an astounding diversity of form and content. Earnestness, pathos and humour are the cornerstones of his practice, and his titles often provide vital clues.

Kippenberger was a master of the knowing game, of sounding out and putting together. In his ever-changing roles, he reinvented himself as artist, performer, author, creator of exhibitions and books. He questioned identification and authorship by using all available techniques of reproduction to duplicate and disperse his works. A case in point is his unorthodox decision to commission a professional billboard painter to paint his works, among them Lieber Maler, male mir (“Dear painter, paint for me”).

The survey exhibition sheds light on Martin Kippenberger’s unusual practice in all its facets and across all media—from painting, sculpture and installation to drawing, collage, editions, artist’s books and posters.

Rein Wolfs, director of the Bundeskunsthalle, comments, “Martin Kippenberger was a catalyst of impressions of all kinds—he emphasised, exaggerated, transformed and reshaped things; he used irony and satire, he recontextualised and opened a level of thinking that went far beyond the picture.”

Curator: Susanne Kleine
Director: Rein Wolfs
Managing Director: Patrick Schmeing

Press Officer: Sven Bergmann
kommunikation [​at​] bundeskunsthalle.de

Current exhibitions:
From Mosul to Palmyra
A Virtual Journey through the World’s Cultural Heritage
until November 3, 2019

California Dreams
San Francisco – A Portrait
until January 12, 2020

Federal Prize for Art Students
until January 5, 2020
24th Federal Competition of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research

Soon to come:

Beethoven
World.Citizen.Music
December 17, 2019 to April 26, 2020

The Bundeskunsthalle is supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media