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Martin Kippenberger (1953-1997)

Self-Portrait

Details
Martin Kippenberger (1953-1997)
Self-Portrait
signed with alias, inscribed and dated 'ANDREAS N.Y. 81' (lower right)
oilstick on paper
23¼ x 16½in. (59.3 x 41.8cm.)
Executed in 1981
Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist by a previous owner.
Private Collection, Berlin.
Special notice
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

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Lock Kresler
Lock Kresler

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Lot Essay

A middle-class child in a post-war, guilt-ridden country, he made the burden of his own Germanness the primary target for his vicious brand of humorous troublemaking. While most of his compatriots infused their art with a sense of historical mea culpa, Kippenberger flaunted his identity, amplifying all its problematic connotations. It might be easy to dismiss Kippenberger's identity game as a punk gesture, simply reacting to societal taboos and the intelligentsia's adherence to political correctness. Instead, I see his practice as forwarding a series of strategies designed to multiply misunderstandings and create unstable meanings. His work undermines the conventional thinking about identity politics. Kippenberger offers a liberating, non-programmatic, anti-ideological brand of political art.
(Piotr Uklanski quoted in D. Krystof and J. Morgan, Martin Kippenberger, Tate Publishing, London, 2006.)

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