In the exhibition at Galerie Thomas, works from three  decades provide a good insight into Günther Förg's painterly work.  Abstract and geometric, but at the same time gestural, expressive and  spontaneous, Förg explores the possibilities and conditions of painting  through the variation of surfaces, materials and colour contrasts -  paintings which not only want to be looked at, but also have a shaping  effect on perception. 

Günther Förg's oeuvre is marked by a  pictorial language that encompasses several materials and media,  focussing mainly on the relation to space. Since the late 1970s, he  developed this language in the fields of photography, painting,  sculpture and installations. With his material-accentuating, abstract  style of painting that often manifested itself in black and grey  monochrome works, Förg also unlocked the potential of lead and aluminium  as new painting substrates. In the 1990s, he created large-format,  coloured window and grid pictures as well as works in the tradition of  Colour Field Painting, but always in the context of exploring and  reinterpreting spaces. In his photographic series, he dealt with  buildings that shaped the 20th century history of architecture. Yet  here, too, the relation to space remained important and inspired Förg to  further explore architectural structures and construction elements,  outside of their context, from an artistic viewpoint. Förg's works were  exhibited at documenta IX in 1992. He became a professor at the Munich  Academy of Fine Arts in 1999.