Günther FörgWall Paintings. Deichtorhallen Hamburg

Günther Förg was a genuine artist of space! From 1978, while he was still a student at the academy, Günther Förg began to execute coloured wall paintings. For him, as he liked to recount with a laugh, this was an obvious thing to do; after all, during his studies he had repeatedly earned extra money as a house painter. Altogether more than 140 wall paintings were created, a selection of which will now be on view at the Deichtorhallen. Günther Förg had been looking forward to the exhibition of the wall paintings at the Deichtorhallen; in an interview he had clearly divided this complex of works, so important to him, into different types years ago: “… the first were vertical, later horizontal bisections of the wall. Then there are colour sequences in which various colour fields stand side by side. There were rooms in which all four walls were painted in different colours. Various paintings were made in public or semi-public spaces. In these works the architecture is to the fore, made visible and/or emphasised by means of the painting. The colour relates to the place … Furthermore, wall paintings with areas and stripes were made, as well as wall pictures that come close to the panel painting.” The critic Hans-Joachim Müller put it thus: “Günther Förg was a genuine artist of space!”

Exhibition:
Deichtorhallen Hamburg, 31/7–25/10/2015