Better than de Kooning

"STONED AGIN"

"Better than de Kooning" sounds like an unfortunate genre joke, because "nobody can paint better than de Kooning", and yet it is an ideal title for a group exhibition. In the mid-1970s, Peter Saul painted a series of pictures of women that parodistically refer to Willem de Koonig's "Woman" pictures (1950-53). He meticulously imitates the "brush strokes" and the impasto in a stylistic mix of pointillism and graffiti art, but turns up the colour controls and lets the abstract expressionist painting and the women themselves melt like soft ice cream in a "Daliesque" manner (see the article "Un Autre Monde" by Marcus Weber and "Ice Creams, Atom Bomb, I-Screens, Data Bomb" in the book by Esther Leslie). In 2008, Saul painted another version of these cartoon-like neon avatars and called the picture: "Better than de Kooning" ... a relief of US reality.

Artists:
Tim Berresheim, Jana Euler, Maria Lassnig, Lee Lozano, Michel Majerus, Dieter Krieg, Katrin Plavčak, Jon Rafman, Gunter Reski, Peter Saul, Matthias Schaufler, Jim Shaw, Amy Sillman, Sue Williams

Exhibition:
Villa Merkel Galleries of the City of Esslingen: 12/9-15/11/2015