Ralph
Wolter
Donates
Three
Rare
Norbert
Bisky
Works
On
Paper
July 2022
KÖNIG GALERIE is pleased to announce that Ralph Wolter will gift three Norbert Bisky works on paper to the collection of the Berlinische Galerie. The works represent a rare period of Bisky’s watercolour activity and their addition to this important institution will both enrich their current holdings and preserve this unique phase in Bisky’s wider oeuvre.
The three watercolour and pencil works – JUNGE RÖMER (Young Romans), BLUTER (Bleeders), and LOCAL WARMING – depict scenes of male wrestling and bodily contact, including the bloody after effects rendered as small areas of bright red colour. The images were created between 2004 – 2007 and celebrate in miniature the erotic nature of such contiguities, with Bisky’s characteristic centrifugal compositions. The large open spaces of the paper provide a soft backdrop for the action, and the diminutive scale of the figures creates a tension between the force of their movements and Bisky’s delicate portrayal of their bodies in tiny brushstrokes.
These small scenes offer a concentrated look at how Bisky represents bodies in motion, here without the usually compact choreography of his painted works. Such clarity and reduction to tiny brushwork offers unique insights into the development of Bisky’s later work, the watercolours almost like studies for something grander in scale.
LOCAL WARMING, 2007, watercolour, pencil on paper, framed, 42 x 56 cm, unique
