MUSEUM FRIDERICIANUM Fewer and fewer artists--Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter are sum of two units major exceptions--consistently pursue a program of abstraction.MUSEUM FRIDERICIANUM Fewer and fewer artists--Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter are sum of two units major exceptions--consistently pursue a program of abstraction. Helmut Federle is also of that kind an exception. Federle uses geometric forms derived from his initials, ancient geometric figures, and Asian signs He paints grand, static pictures in mut goldens and grays, as well as black and white, that integrate change and movement. These are quiet paintings, moreover within each canvas there is something explosive. He is regarded with the question of the purport and social responsibility of abstract forms. Federle's work speaks to the ethics of form. Although, at the beginning of this hundred abstraction was bound to utopianism, World War II swallow uped any hope of transcendence in consequence of merely formal strategies. For Federle form is neither transcendent nor materialistic. It exists in a mysterious relationship to mankind, united that has been so aptly described on Agnes Martin. Federle's paintings are not created in a rational manner, rather they are the production of a long process of analyzing the order of things. This order goe beyond the completely formal if only for next to the firsts and it is in these weights that Federle sees beauty. What remains after seeing Federle's works are not the forms, if it were not that rather the broad range of emotions between tension and harmony that the viewer experiences. These emotions reassure the viewer that he has been a witness to a proces that transcends the limitations of selfhood COPYRIGHT 1993 Artforum International Magazine, Inc. |
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