Axel Vervoordt Gallery is proud to present a solo exhibition “Was weiss das Weiss” on Raimund Girke (1930-2002), taking you through every chapter of his oeuvre. The exhibition takes place on the occasion of the upcoming monograph “Between White / Was weiss das Weiss” on his life and work, which elaborates on the international context in which Girke was invited to participate.
The Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf is where Heinz Mack and Otto Piene, those who founded ZERO in 1958, studied. Raimund Girke, also a student there, knew them well, but in the 1950s he became more inspired by art informel, by the first exhibitions of Serge Poliakoff in Germany and by the travelling exhibition on Kazimir Malevich at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. The influence of the latter gradually took over, causing Girke to work in stripped-down, monochrome white works. He continued to play a role in the background of the ZERO movement, as gallerists such as Adam Seide in Hannover, Günter Meisner in Berlin (Galerie Diogenes) and William E. Simmat in Frankfurt (Galerie d) represented him and included him in important exhibitions, alongside Dorazio, Mavignier and Uecker, among others. Henk Peeters, initiator of several groundbreaking manifestations, also invited Girke to his Galerie Orez in The Hague, where he took part in the outspoken exhibition “Nieuwe Tendenzen” (New Tendencies); Christian Megert, on the other hand, invited him several times to Galerie Aktuell in Bern.
Meanwhile, the German art historian and director of the Museum Morsbroich in Leverkussen was working on his own concept, which he called ‘neue Malerei’. The resulting exhibition, “Monochrome Malerei” (Monochrome Painting) in 1960, showed Girke alongside the above-mentioned artists, but also artists such as Castellani, Rothko and Rainer, artists that Girke was impressed by such as Klein, Fontana and Verheyen, as well as fellow painters Girke met to discuss, including LeBlanc and Holweck, as is shown by historical photographs. The work Girke showed there, Strukturen, is now in the collection of Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums.
Kultermann's project gave rise to several initiatives that went a step further and, in the spirit of Malevich, explored the limits of white on white, such as the eponymous exhibition in deCordova Museum, Lincoln MA, in 1965, curated by Frederick P. Walkey with advice from George Rickey. Harald Szeemann invited Girke to participate in “Weiss auf Weiss” at the Kunsthalle Bern a year later; and in 1973 there was “Basically White” at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London.
Girke, however, did not see himself as part of any particular group or movement, which more than once earned him the description of Einzelgänger. The comparison with Agnes Martin, with whom Girke exhibited for the first time in 1969, or Robert Ryman, in 1973, thus turns out not to be just about the visual similarities: they are all artists who, without interfering with certain movements, have remained true to their artistic principles and paradigms. For Girke, this was the eternal quest for the possibilities of the presence and absence of the colour white, for him “Königin der farben”. The so-called Lamellenbilder that Girke made in this period show a similar conceptual approach to the work of art as these other artists – characterised by repetition, perception and a precise balance.
In 1975, Girke participated in the exhibition “Fundamentele Schilderkunst" at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, curated by Rini Dippel and Edy de Wilde with, among others, Ryman and Martin. It was just one of the initiatives that reflected on a theoretical approach to returning to the fundamentals or principles of painting, like Planned Painting, Analytical Painting, Essential Painting or, in the 1980s, Radical Painting. It also resulted in Girke's participation in documenta 6 in 1977 – both the painting and drawing sections. At the time, Girke was again clearly starting from the beginning of the painting process, with vertical brushstrokes and an almost homogeneous grey result, which would later be characterised by more contrasts, gestural movements and pastose substance. Three works from 1978 and one from 1980 were acquired by the Nationalgalerie, initiated by Dieter Honish, and in 1985 were part of the exhibition “Neuerwerbungen” alongside Fontana, Uecker and Albers.
In the meantime, Girke enjoyed his first monographic retrospectives, and has been curated in group exhibitions on the art of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland in Bonn and abroad. Girke was shown on more than one occasion together with, among others, his former classmate Gotthard Graubner and with Gerhard Richter, whose work Girke also had in his personal art collection, as one of the artists who embodied the art of the country, which in 1990 would form Germany together with the GDR. The year before, two major works by Girke were shown at the exhibition “Ambiente Berlin” as part of the Venice Biennale.
Girke's paintings from the 1980s and 1990s vacillate between dynamism and calm, visible in the brushstrokes. In some paintings, Girke returned to the colours of the earth, such as blue and ochre - the colours that also appear in the work Farben der Erde (1956), which is on display in this exhibition. In the 1990s, Girke preferred working in large format, lending himself to wide rhythmic movements and an openness to the viewer.
In this period, Girke exhibited twice more with international names that are highly regarded in art history: in 1989, he was one of the artists who took part in the Art-Kite event in Osaka, together with several artists connected with post-war avant-garde artistic movements. Several of them met again in 2001, at an exhibition that brought Claude Monet's colouring into dialogue with the work of modern artists. Once again, Girke showed the painting Strukturen (1959). He died a year later, in 2002 – the ceremony for the Lower Saxony Art Prize he was awarded shortly before, was held posthumously.
