Gunter Damisch “Weltköpflerdurcheinander” 1994

At first glance, the unmistakable works of Gunter Damisch—widely regarded as a leading figure of the Neue Wilde—appear as though viewed through a magnified lens, revealing a strange and teeming world of enlarged micro-organic forms. These proliferating structures evoke microbes, protozoa, or amoebae, oscillating in their effect between proximity and distance, monumentality and minuteness. Damisch himself conceived of his painting as a means of generating autonomous pictorial worlds. These boundless, almost cosmic spaces are shaped by a distinctive formal vocabulary. Within his highly individual system of imagery, one encounters terms such as “Welten” (worlds), “Felder” (fields), “Wege” (paths), “Netze” (networks), “Flimmern” (flickering), and “Steher” (upright forms); in the present work on paper from the series Arten & Orte Übermalgeschichten, so-called “Köpfler” also appear. These elements extend beyond the edges of the picture plane into a sense of limitless expansion, at times condensing into dense clusters, at others dispersing explosively across the surface, thereby conveying a continuous sense of motion. The composition frequently adheres to an all-over principle, in which no single focal point dominates. The pictorial surface appears rhythmically animated, almost pulsating, while chance is embraced as an active and generative force within the painterly process. Damisch’s oil paintings are further distinguished by their intense, high-contrast palette, which heightens the dynamism and vitality of his expansive visual worlds.