Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke
‚Schöne Bescherung‘

Leverkusen

Schöne Bescherung brings together the works of artists and friends Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter. Museum Morsbroich currently displays artworks from both artists as well as testimonies of their close friendship as like the picture of Polke and Richter taking a bath.

Together with the two artists Konrad Lueg and Manfred Kuttner, Polke, Richter founded the painting movement ‘Kapitalistischer Realismus’ (Capitalist realism) in 1963. The four artists all rejected the established art world. That also recovers in their works that is marked by an anti-style of art inspired by the shorthand of advertising. 50 years later, Schöne Bescherung celebrates the movement, their art and friendship. The exhibition that is curated by Fritz Emslander shows the emblematic abstract and photo inspired works of Richter as well as the subversive spirit of Polke represented by comic strips completely reworked by the artist. Both artists embody half a century of crucial change in Germany’s artistic panorama that they reshaped and fortified.

Gerhard Richter, Tiger, 1965, 140 x 150 cm Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen
© Gerhard Richter

March 13 – August 28, 2016

Museum Morsbroich

Gustav-Heinemann-Str. 80
51377 Leverkusen
Germany

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