Deutsche Guggenheim to show 'Picturing America: Photorealism in the 70s'

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Written by rubin   
Tuesday, 10 March 2009 06:39

Richard Estes - Supreme Hardware, 1974 - Oil on canvas 111.8 x 163.8 cm. - High Museum of Art, Atlanta. Gift of Virginia Carroll Crawford, 1978.119. - Courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York.  © Richard Estes

Berlin, Germany - At the end of the 1960s, a number of young artists working in the United States began making realist paintings based directly on photographs. With meticulous detail, they portrayed the objects, people, and places that defined both urban and suburban contemporary American life. Various terms were used to describe this art, chief among them Hyperrealism and Photorealism. Picturing America: Photorealism in the 1970s, the first major showing of Photorealism in Germany in nearly thirty years.

Unlike their contemporaries the Pop artists, the Photorealists did not present their ubiquitous, and in many cases mundane, subject matter in an ironic manner. Rather, they stayed more or less faithful to the mechanical reproductions that served as their point of departure. Using a variety of methods to translate photographic information onto the canvas, these artists produced vivid images of such themes as reflective shop windows, shiny cars, sugary foodstuffs, and family vacations, often on a scale vastly larger than their source materials.

Charles Bell - Gum Ball No.10 'Sugar Daddy', 1975. Oil on canvas 167.6 x 167.6 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Photo:Kristopher McKay © Charles BellPicturing America: Photorealism in the 1970s, the first major showing of Photorealism in Germany in nearly thirty years, features thirty-one paintings, a number of them the most iconic works of the period, by fourteen artists: Robert Bechtle, Charles Bell, Tom Blackwell, Chuck Close, Robert Cottingham, Don Eddy, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Ralph Goings, Ron Kleeman, Richard McLean, Malcolm Morley, John Salt, and Ben Schonzeit. At once deeply nostalgic and incredibly fresh, the works in this exhibition provide a snapshot of both this important chapter in art history and a particular moment in American history. The exhibition will acknowledge the recognition accorded to American Photorealism in Germany during the 1970s through the inclusion of numerous works collected by Peter and Irene Ludwig and a portfolio of ten lithographs produced in conjunction with Documenta V, which included a major presentation dedicated to the movement.

Deutsche Guggenheim is situated on Unter den Linden in the old and new centre of Berlin. The museum´s unusual name derives from its initiators - Deutsche Bank and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. This co-operation represents a unique joint venture between a bank and a museum. Ever since its foundation in 1870, the Deutsche Bank has considered its cultural commitment to be an essential part of its commercial and social responsibility. According to the motto "Art at Work," one aspect of this commitment has led since 1979 to the largest collection by a single company in the world, one which today comprises more than 50,000 works of art. The main emphasis of the collection is upon contemporary works on paper.  Visit : http://www.deutsche-guggenheim-berlin.de/e/


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