Beschreibung:

Georg Herold Untitled 1991 copper-electroplated screws on canvas 98 3/8 x 78 3/4 in. (250 x 200 cm) Signed and dated "Herold 91" on the reverse.
Provenance Luhring Augustine Hetzler Gallery, Santa Monica Catalogue Essay Facharbeiterficken (Fucking Skilled Workers), 1982 was the title of the artists’ book compiled by Georg Herold Werner Büttner and Albert Oehlen as a form of grassroots activity - a sort of low-keyed revolutionary tone - protesting the petit bourgeois and their inflated interest in art criticism and epicureanism. Herold took this conceptualization to its furthest bounds, focusing his art on the objects of the everyday. As he stated, “My choice of materials is not subject to any conscious aesthetic criteria. The materials must merely be able to absorb and transport my ideas. I do not use materials that speak their own language as a matter of principle. That’s why I look for raw, dumb materials that don’t pose any questions.” (The artist quoted in Gerhardsen Gerner, Oslo Press Release for his 2013 exhibition there.) Untitled from 1991 is an exemplar of his ability to recontextualize and reconstitute these “dumb materials” into works which speak a language of his own creation. Unlike the Italian Arte Povera, Herold does not merely place lowly objects in elevated settings but manages to burnish them within an entirely new discourse, reimagining the place of these objects in the eye of the viewer. These may be “lowly” screws but electroplated to the canvas and assuming an almost impasto-like quality, they become infinitely more than their quotidian utility, arguably less meaningful with their original and true function stripped from them. So, too, does Herold contort his medium, and the expectations and perspectives of his viewers, to confront a new reality of his creation - one perfectly encapsulated in works such as this Untitled from 1991. Read More