'Serial Works on Paper'
July 5 to September 6, 2008

Serial works are determined by the order and variation of similar elements. Since the late 19th century artists in different creative periods and with different intentions have been interested in serial works as a way to explore unifying and divisive formal aspects in their own work. In contrast to work cycles, which focus on content development, serial works focus on variations of formal aspects. And as serial works, as opposed to cyclical, have a beginning but no end, the artist might explore variations of formal aspects in a rich variety. And due to its specific properties, paper allows the artist to evoke much broader variations. Serial works on paper play with aspects of control and chance, with the specific formal characteristics of the single work and its formal interconnection within the series. Thus, serial works on paper are a creative “test track” for artists and viewer as well.

Julius Werner Berlin dedicates its summer exhibition to this phenomenon. On display are works by Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, André Derain, Jean Fautrier, Anthony Höckelmann, Jörg Immendorff, Per Kirkeby, Eugène Leroy, Markus Lüpertz, Henri Michaux, A.R. Penck, Francis Picabia, Sigmar Polke, Eugen Schönebeck and Don Van Vliet. These artists had different reasons to draw their attention to serial works but what they shared is that they turned their attention from the art work as individual work to one as part of a group.

For example, Henri Michaux, the French artist-writer and pioneer of Tachism, was interested in transitional moments and the connection between language and visual arts. His calligraphic-like ink drawings from the “Mouvements” series (1951), which accompanied a poem of the same title, are an explicit expression of this interest.

In his large drawings of backs from 2004 and the smaller gouaches of the eighties, German artist Markus Lüpertz explores the principles of abstraction, specifically the relationship between “Gestalt” and form. Both series deal with the human figure. Lüpertz approaches the human figure in different styles at different moments, alternately more realistic and more abstract. In both series he explores the possibilities of abstraction and painting and thus, the serial implementation in his approach is consistent.

These works on paper as well as works by other artists are exhibited from 5 July to 6th September 2008 at Julius Werner Berlin, Kochstraße 60, 10969 Berlin, Germany.