10.5.1957 Brien-Elven, 1957

Not only as a visual artist and teacher did KO Götz influence the German art scene from the 1950s to the 1980s – he also wrote surrealistic poetry and academic studies. As a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1959 to 1979, Götz, who died in 2017 at the age of 103, taught several generations of artists, which include Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter and Gotthard Graubner. In 1952 he was part of a group exhibition of the Zimmergalerie Franck in Frankfurt am Main, which has gone down in history as Quadriga and the first manifestation of informalist art in Germany. The same year, he invented his own technique for which this artist has become well-known. With his self-constructed squeegee – originally a wiper blade for excess paint – he pushes and sweeps the still wet paint across the canvas and thus exposes individual areas. This creates the dynamic traces of paint so characteristic of Götz.

This work in the Reinhard Ernst Collection clearly illustrates this technique. Götz works quickly with his brush and squeegee but with paint across the canvas in a highly concentrated manner on a light background. Blue and yellow colour graduations produce a spatial effect on what is in reality a very flat surface.