Günther Förg

L'Horrible, public sculpture in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Günther Förg (5 December 1952 – 5 December 2013) was a German painter, graphic designer, sculptor and photographer. His style was influenced by American abstract painting.

Life

Förg was born in Füssen, Allgäu. His father, Michael, worked in a customs office. He studied from 1973 until 1979 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Karl Fred Dahmen. From 1992 until 1999, he taught at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design in Karlsruhe. From 1999 on he was a professor in Munich. He had a home in Areuse, Switzerland, as well as in Freiburg. In 1993 he married Ika Huber. His paintings in abstract styles recall Cy Twombly, Ellsworth Kelly and others. For his series of paintings on lead, dating from the 1980s and 1990s, he wrapped lead sheets over wood, then painted each surface with acrylic.

Förg started using photography in his work at the beginning of the 1980s. In the area of photography he is known for his works from 1980–2006, primarily very large formats showing famous architectural sites such as the Wittgenstein House, Casa Malaparte, Casa del Fascio, and Hans Poelzig’s IG Farben Building in Frankfurt. For this purpose he travelled extensively to Spain, Israel, Austria, Russia, France, Turkey and Italy where he primarily photographed Bauhaus buildings. His photographs of buildings with cultural and political significance — Bauhaus structures in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, for example, or Fascist ones in Italy — were taken from unusual, sharp-angled perspectives, with off-center framing and often in grainy focus, suggestive of painting.

In 1991 for the opening of Frankfurt's Museum für Moderne Kunst, Förg produced a colorful wall piece for the central stairway, which together with a bronze relief formed a contrast to the architectural structure of the post-modern museum architecture. In 2000, he was commissioned with designs for Swiss Re's Centre for Global Dialogue in Zurich. For this project Forg handled the color design for all of the interiors in the 1920s Villa Bodmer and installed two enormous tubes of raw metal in its central entrance hall.

He died, aged 61, in Colombier, Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

Exhibitions Förg had his first solo exhibition at Rüdiger Schöttle Gallery, Munich, in 1980 with a series of monochrome paintings. In 1992, his work could be seen at the documenta IX, followed by an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1995. Förg has had solo exhibitions at Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria, Langen Foundation, Neuss, Germany, Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland; Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany; Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Netherlands; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, Austria, Museum der Stadt Füssen, Füssen, Germany, and Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, Germany.

Art market During his lifetime, Förg’s work was shown by Greene Naftali Gallery in New York; Almine Rech Gallery in New York, London, Paris, and Brussels; and Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin. Since 2018, his estate has been exclusively represented by Hauser & Wirth.

Recognition In 1996, Förg was awarded the Wolfgang Hahn Prize. He is mentioned in the book Art Now, vol. 3 , (Taschen Verlag, 2009) as being amongst the most interesting living contemporary artists. According to Artinvestor Magazine (2009), Förg ranked 23rd globally amongst then living artists when several factors are combined, such as collections, auction results and gallery representation.

Gallery

Public collections

Germany Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich Lenbachhaus, Munich Daimler Contemporary, Berlin Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin Sammlung Haubrok, Berlin Sammlung Hoffmann, Berlin Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Chemnitz MKM Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst, Duisburg Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen Kunstsammlung Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt am Main Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt am Main Städel, Frankfurt/Main Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe Museum Kurhaus Kleve Museum Ludwig, Cologne Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst GfZK, Leipzig Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach Kunstraum Grässlin, St. Georgen Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg

Austria Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg/Vienna

Canada AGO, Toronto National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

The Netherlands Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Switzerland Swiss Re, Zurich

United Kingdom Tate Modern, London

United States National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL MOCA, Los Angeles, CA Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Saint Louis, MO San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica, CA

Scandinavia Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark Arken Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj, Denmark

Auction record Vente Masters - Art Moderne & Contemporain du 2 décembre 2020