Peter Bömmels
Untitled
1985

About the Item

Bömmels belonged to the co-founders of the Cologne artist group Mülheimer Freiheit , which also included Hans Peter Adamski , Walter Dahn , Jiří Georg Dokoupil , Gerard Kever and Gerhard Naschberger . From 1979, the young artists shared a backyard studio in the street "Mülheimer Freiheit" in Cologne, which leads to the Rhine. In 1980 he co-founded the music magazine Spex . In 1983 he was awarded the Promotion Prize of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia for Fine Arts, In 1986 and 1987 he had a visiting professorship at the College of Fine Arts in Hamburg , from 1990 to 1992 at the then Hochschule der Künste Berlin , in 1996 at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen and from 2001 to 2002 at the Braunschweig Academy of Fine Arts . From 2004 to 2018 professor for painting at the HfBK Dresden . In 1993 he received the Fred Thieler Prize for painting. (Courtesy Wikipedia) Dedicated lower right: "For Ileana" (Sonnabend) Note: in 1984, Ileana Sonnabend had an exhibition of Bommels works entitled "New Yorks" Signed and dated lower right corner Pencil on yellow tinted paper "The work of Peter Bömmels has been described as "a Grimm's fairytale world of horrific metamorphosis." His imagery (which he attributes partly to his Catholic religious education) and his materials work together to form a complex allegorical language. The thick, creamy ground of this painting is overlaid with delicate lines made of human hair. The artist said that "the symbolic charge of the hair should never be seen in direct connection with the pictorial narrative." While Bömmels urges viewers to separate their response to his materials from the story of the painting, this proves very difficult to do. The image itself is also a challenge to interpret and may represent a dream or nightmare. It has been suggested that understanding Bömmels's images requires creating one's own individual mythology. The painting's title is inscribed by the artist on the back of the canvas, half in German and half in English. It translates roughly as "Sexes/Attack (Landscape Version)" and proves to be as enigmatic as the imagery." Provenance: Sonnabend (New York) Label Regarding Sonnabend Gallery Sonnabend Gallery opened in Paris in 1962 and was instrumental in making American art of the 1960s known in Europe, with an emphasis on American Pop Art. In 1970, Sonnabend Gallery opened in New York on Madison Avenue and in 1971 relocated to 420 West Broadway in SoHo where it was one of the major protagonists that made SoHo the international art center it remained until the early 1990s. The gallery was instrumental in making European art of the 1970s known in America, with an emphasis on European conceptual art and Arte Povera. It also presented American conceptual and minimal art of the 1970s. In 1986, the so-called “Neo-Geo” show introduced, among others, the artist Jeff Koons.

Creator:

Peter Bömmels (1951)

Creation Year:

1985

Dimensions:

Height: 8.63 in (21.93 cm)Width: 7.25 in (18.42 cm)

Medium:

Graphite

Movement & Style:

Surrealist

Period:

1980-1989