German Art - Post WWII Art

Post WWII Art

Post-war art trends in Germany can broadly be divided into Neo-expressionism and Conceptualism.

Especially notable neo-expressionists include or included Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, Jörg Immendorff, A. R. Penck, Markus Lüpertz, and Rainer Fetting. Other notable artists who work with traditional media or figurative imagery include Martin Kippenberger, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, and Neo Rauch.

Leading German conceptual artists include or included Bernd and Hilla Becher, Hanne Darboven, Hans-Peter Feldman, Hans Haacke, and Charlotte Posenenske.

The Performance artist, sculptor, and theorist Joseph Beuys was perhaps the most influential German artist of the late 20th century. His main contribution to theory was the expansion of the Gesamtkunstwerk to include the whole of society, as expressed by his famous expression "Everyone is an artist". This expanded concept of art, known as social sculpture, defines everything that contributes creatively to society as artistic in nature. The form this took in his oeuvre varied from richly metaphoric, almost shamanistic performances based on his personal mythology (How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, I Like America and America Likes Me) to more direct and utilitarian expressions, such as 7000 Oaks and his activities in the Green party.

Famous for their happenings are HA Schult and Wolf Vostell. Wolf Vostell is also known for his early installations with television. His first installations with television the Cycle Black Room from 1958 was shown in Wuppertal at the Galerie Parnass in 1963 and his installation 6 TV Dé-coll/age was shown at the Smolin Gallery in New York also in 1963.

The art group Gruppe SPUR included: Lothar Fischer (1933–2004), Heimrad Prem (1934–1978), Hans-Peter Zimmer (1936–1992) and Helmut Sturm (1932). The SPUR-artists met first at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich and, before falling out with them, were associated with the Situationist International. Other groups include the Junge Wilde of the late 1970s to early 1980s.

documenta (sic) is a major exhibition of contemporary art held in Kassel every five years (2007, 2012...), Art Cologne is an annual art fair, again mostly for contemporary art, and Transmediale is an annual festival for art and digital culture, held in Berlin.

Other contemporary German artists include Jonathan Meese, Daniel Richter, Albert Oehlen, Markus Oehlen, Rosemarie Trockel, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Blinky Palermo, Hans-Jürgen Schlieker, Günther Uecker, Aris Kalaizis, Katharina Fritsch, Fritz Schwegler and Thomas Schütte.