with Greene Naftali Gallery, New York (acquired directly from the Artist's estate),
Private collection, Italy.

Displaying an astonishingly sparse embrace of the idiosyncratic visual properties of discerningly selected materials, Günther Förg’s breathtaking Untitled is an exemplary exponent of the artist’s nuanced extension of the modernist tendency, declaring an ultimate aesthetic of purity. Through a strident annunciation of unadulterated pigments and revelry in the unique coarseness of their interaction with pure canvas, Förg re-oriented the dialogue for minimalist painting and situated himself amongst the most significant artists of the Twentieth Century.

Studying at The Academy of Fine Art Munich from 1973- 76, Förg’s early career was dominated by black monochromes, taking influence from the Suprematist ideals of Kazimir Malevich whose Black Square (1915) provided unequivocal inspiration for all subsequent explorations of abstraction. Yet Förg’s particular use of acrylic with the addition of a translucent grey, offered a peculiar surface effect: from the genesis of his practice the artist moved from the spiritualistic approach to abstract art, founded with Malevich, towards a formal focus on the properties of materials. Following the unexpected death of his artistic confidant Blinky Palermo in 1977, Förg decidedly took upon himself the legacy of European Minimal Art, becoming its greatest proponent.

Paramount to the present work is an exaltation of the elemental ontology of the colors. As highlighted by fellow German painter Albert Oehlen, Förg “creates sublime works from something that is already sublime.” (Albert Oehlen quoted in Andreas Schlaegl, ‘Günther Förg: Galerie Max Hetzler’, Frieze, Spring 2012) As an architectural object that supports the reaction of paint upon its surface, Förg arrived at a most extreme minimal abstraction in works such as Untitled. He thus laid to rest the illusionistic ‘window to the world’ that had long been the cornerstone idea of figurative painting. "I like to react on things, with the normal canvas you have to kill the ground, give it something to react against. With the metals you already have something – its scratches, scrapes…” (Günther Förg in conversation with David Ryan, Karlsruhe, 1997, quoted in David Ryan, Talking Painting: Dialogue with Twelve Contemporary Abstract Painters, London, 2002, p. 77)

Förg’s simple compositional formula here provides a confrontation between two powerfully emotive primary hues – the expansive enigma of an infinite white and the heat of an impassioned orange– with a deep saturation that resonates into its surround. With the dispersion of these elemental colors the artist evokes the design-considered purism of Piet Mondrian and De Stijl. At a later end of abstraction, the dispersion of color into space and sense of architectural statement recalls Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. Yet our ability to absorb the spiritually enveloping capacities of the work are compromised by Förg’s rational insistence on raw materiality. Utilizing the unique properties of a base element of the periodic table, the surface becomes an enlivened plateau of intriguing texture heightened by gestural brushstrokes.