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Untitled [The installation of the White Paintings]
Untitled [The installation of the White Paintings]
(1991) is a series of white lacquer paintings
on white canvas, each one recessed into the white walls of the gallery
to form a continuous surface, which blurs the line between the artwork
and the exhibition space. The paintings are based on a question
and answer session between Kippenberger and a young boy. The boy
was asked to describe the paintings and pass comment on them, each
time offering the unwaveringly positive response, ‘sehr gut’, or
‘very good.’ Most of the German sentences are also given in English,
which may explain some of the grammatical and spelling mistakes
in both languages, but these errors mainly illuminate the visual
and linguistic puns and incongruities that dominate Kippenberger’s
work.
Ten of the original eleven paintings are exhibited here, in five different
sizes. The canvases conform to standard sizes used by Kippenberger throughout
his career. Some of the larger panels include a complete page of the transcript
but, in most of them, only fragments of questions or answers are legible.
Untitled [The installation of the White Paintings]
make formal reference to debates around language-based conceptual
art as a critique of the ‘empty’ white cube gallery space, while
the texts themselves are an ironic comment on our apparent willingness
to place beyond judgement anything invested with the authority of
the artist or museum. When it was first exhibited, the installation
included the umpire towers that now form part of The Happy End
of Franz Kafka’s ‘Amerika,’ in which Kippenberger radically
expands his fascination with the interview as an arrangement that
facilitates both social mobility and exclusion.
Installation of Weisse Bilder / White Paintings 1991
Estate Martin Kippenberger
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Installation of Weisse Bilder/ White Paintings 1991
Estate Martin Kippenberger
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Weisse Bild / White Painting 1991
Estate Martin Kippenberger
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