Un Allemand en Paris: Gunter Forg at Lelong

Günther Förg
Peintures, aquarelles et photographies
Galerie Lelong Paris
until 20 October

© Gunter Forg, both Sans titre [Untitled], 2007. Acrylique et craie sur toile. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Lelong Paris.

Günter Förg's large abtract paintings are on view for another couple of weeks and are well worth seeing. There's a huge freshness and vitality to this work, which utlises lush, painterly marks to create energetic gridded forms. Pure abstraction has been somewhat out of fashion in Europe these past years, and this show has a refreshing confidence that paint on canvas, without an elaborate conceptual subtext or ironic reference to the history of painting, is enough. Vive la surface!

According to the press release: "Grilles ou trames, entrecroisements de lignes verticales et horizontales, déploiement de touches de couleur libres, il n'y a dans les peintures de Günther Förg ni symboles, ni métaphores, ni sens caché. Ce que vous voyez est ce que vous voyez, la manifestation d'une liberté, d'une grâce, d'une simplicité et d'une audace : obtenir l'intensité visuelle la plus grande avec les moyens picturaux les plus réduits. «Se rappeler qu’un tableau, avant d’être un cheval de bataille, une femme nue ou une quelconque anecdote, est essentiellement une surface plane recouverte de couleurs en un certain ordre assemblées» (M. Denis)

[Grids or screens, intersections of vertical and horizontal lines, use of touches of free colour; in the paintings of Günter Förg there are neither symbols, metaphors, nor hidden meanings. What you see is what you see, the manifestation of a liberty, grace, simplicity and audacity: to derive the greatest visual intensity with the most reduced means. "One refects that a picture, before being a war-horse, a naked woman or an unspecified anecdote, is primarily a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain way" (M. Denis)]

Forg is professor of painting at Munich's School of Fine Arts.