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Jörg Immendorff

Immendorff Jörg

Jörg Immendorff (Bleckede, June 14, 1945 - Düsseldorf, May 28, 2007) was a German painter and sculptor. From 1996 until the day of his death, he was a professor at the Düsseldorf art academy. Immendorff developed into an expressionist history painter. In 1968 he caused a stir by parading up and down in his first so-called LIDL action with a black-red-gold block on his leg in front of the Bundestag building until the police came to remove him. His first solo exhibition took place in Münster in 1973. The exhibition was called "Das tun, was zu tun ist" (Do what needs to be done) and the motto, as expressed in the catalog, was: "An artist's fist is also a fist." The catalog text was a radical rejection of self-centered, politically-neutral art, and although the exhibition was not very controversial, it exemplified the path taken by German painting, with neo-expressionism. In 1976 he befriended the painter A.R. Penck who lived in the GDR and was considered undesirable there. In 1982 his work was shown at the Zeitgeist exhibition and in 1984 at the exhibition "Von hier aus". In that same year he also opened a bar in St. Pauli (the La Paloma bar) and made a statue of Hans Albers. In those years his work was related to that of "De Nieuwe Wilden". He was best known for his series of sixteen large canvases under the title "Café Deutschland". These canvases were inspired by Renato Guttusos' Caffè greco. On a kind of stage, all kinds of figures from art and politics play their roles, which among other things symbolize the conflict between East and West. He sometimes painted himself as a monkey with a brush in his hand. Immendorff also designed many theater sets, for example for the Festspiele in Salzburg and was involved in the design of André Luna's Luna Luna theme park. In 1989 he became a professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main and from 1996 he was a professor at the Düsseldorf art academy. In addition to many paintings, he also made expressionistic images. One of his last important assignments was an official portrait of former chancellor Gerhard Schröder. (Catawiki)