Günther Förg: An Intimate Encounter: The Early Years

An exhibition of early formative works by Günther Förg in Galerie Max Hetzler’s new London space. This follows the recent major survey exhibition Günther Förg: A Fragile Beauty at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Dallas Museum of Art, Texas.

Bringing together paintings, large-scale photographs and sculpture dating from 1977-1995, An Intimate Encounter: The Early Years highlights the tactile and ephemeral qualities of Förg’s work across his multidisciplinary practice. Focusing on the materiality of Förg’s early works, this exhibition creates an environment in which to consider the human touch within his oeuvre.

Förg’s energy and spontaneity in the act of making are revealed through the gestures and heavy mark-making visible in the surface of the torso sculpture, as well as the imprecise edges of the paintings and snapshot-like quality of his photographs. Strong protruding wooden shapes emerging from the yellow canvas of Untitled, 1988, and embedded grooves in a work from his rare series of paintings on copper, highlight the physical nature of Förg’s process.