A.R. Penck

A.R. Penck (Ralf Winkler, Dresden, 1939), popular representative of German neo-expressionism who went to the west of Germany in 1980. Since that time, his work, which includes paintings, sculptures, and objects, has been shown at the Biennale di Venezia, the Documenta in Kassel and the most relevant museums and galleries in the world. This work conflates analytic thought and simplifying abstraction and, in an attempt to reflect the intricate structures of the world of contingency, creates social and psychological frameworks of great complexity. In his unmistakable pictorial language of signs and figures expressionism is mixed with primitive art. Ralf Winkler adopted his pseudonym A.R. Penck in homage to a studious geologist of the glacial period.
Recent exhibitions: A. R. Penck Retrospective, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2007) and Musée d Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (2008).