The artist Michael Morgner turned 80 this year. In addition to an extensive exhibition in Chemnitz, art lovers can now get to the bottom of his decades of work with a new catalog raisonné.
Chemnitz (dpa / sn) - The list is four hundred pages thick and yet it can only show part of Michael Morgner's extensive artistic work. Volume 1 of his catalog raisonné, which was officially presented in Chemnitz on Wednesday evening, is an inventory of canvas works and sculptures, said publisher and art collector Thomas Weckerle. It took three to four years to work on it. Volume 2 will be dedicated to the drawings; it should be available in about two years. A catalog raisonné of Morgner's prints was published by other publishers in 2000.
"Michael Morgner is a very original artist, whose pictures have enormous charisma for me," explained Weckerle, who claims to have discovered the non-conformist art of the GDR after reunification. This includes Morgner, as well as Gerhard Altenbourg, Max Uhlig and Carlfriedrich Claus.
Morgner, born in Chemnitz in 1942, distanced himself from official socialist art in the GDR and fought for artistic freedom with fellow campaigners. He was one of the co-founders of the gallery Oben and the artist group "Clara Mosch" in Karl-Marx-Stadt, today's Chemnitz. The 80-year-old is still active today and is one of the most important contemporary German artists. The Chemnitz Art Collections are currently showing a large exhibition on the various facets of his work.
Exhibition curator Marie Winter compared the new catalog raisonné to a dictionary. It is an extremely helpful tool for art historians, for example when preparing exhibitions. Because it not only lists the works together with their title, year of origin and an illustration, but also provides information on their whereabouts. "It is also very easy to understand how Morgner tried out different styles in his early work and when he started using his lavage technique." The art collections themselves contain around 290 works by Morgner.
