Antonius Höckelmann

We are pleased to present a new exhibition of works on paper by the extraordinary German artist Antonius Höckelmann (1937-2000).
Höckelmann studied sculpture, from 1951 until 1957, with Karl Hartung in Berlin, concentrating especially on wood as a material. It was only a gradual process of self-discovery that led him to drawing. His breakthrough came in 1977, with his participation in documenta 6; he returned to Kassel for documenta 7 in 1982, cementing his position in the contemporary art scene with numerous exhibitions throughout the decade, often alongside fellow artists like Georg Baselitz and A.R. Penck. Many of his works resist easy classification, bringing the disciplines of sculpture and painting together in one single piece; he will often combine materials both traditional and strikingly modern, like wood and bronze or Styrofoam and aluminum, in the same sculpture, before covering it in color as well.
The exhibition in the Maximilianstraße gallery spans a vibrant arc of creative years from 1964 until the early 1980s, featuring exclusively works on paper. Höckelmann here employs pastel, charcoal, graphite, and watercolor to conjure forth a host of sculptural and abstract shapes, of pastoral figures and creatures of fable and fantasy. There are echoes of Mannerism and the Baroque, too, lingering motifs from the artist’s time in Italy, and his intense study of those artistic eras. His compositions, charged with an electric sense of tension and suspense, burst with movement and dynamic surfaces, spirals and vegetative forms unfolding the cosmos of his drawings to the audience before them.
The exhibition will run until March 26th, featuring an overview of Höckelmann’s work on paper. The twelve pieces on display are excellent representatives of his art’s power and vitality, each conveying in its own way the power coursing through all his work, in its handling of color and form, of the figurative and the abstract.

Antonius Höckelmann
“n.t.”, 1968,
pencil and pastel on brown wrapping paper
99,0 x 90,0 cm
© Antonius Höckelmann, courtesy Daniel Blau, Munich