A selection of some 30 mostly untitled works from the 1960s and 1970s reveals Wolfgang Kunde's affinity with surrealism and its penchant for seemingly meaningless found objects.
Image gallery
Wolfgang Kunde, Festliche Tafel II, Detail, 1975
“Allotment gardeners are people too” – the ironic title of a small painting by Wolfgang Kunde hints at both familiarity and distance: The artist has never been interested in nature, walks in the park or looking after plants. Instead, he loves old, seemingly defunct things that he picks up at flea markets and out-of-the-way places. Arranged into still lifes in the studio, they begin to take on a life of their own in Kundes' paintings. Jugs and candlesticks, statuettes and sundry found objects proliferate and drift like seaweed under water.
In an anthology on the subject of “Learning to See” (1976), Kunde speaks of “collaging as a cognitive process”. The constant handling of images and objects is central to his own creative practice. Kunde accumulates and arranges tufts of moss and lichen, tools, old frames, newspaper cuttings and illustrations of all kinds. At the same time, he fills old friendship albums with his own pictures, reworks book covers and photographs.
The exhibition STRANGE! provides a welcome occasion for this homage to the artist. Born in Berlin in 1935, where he went on to study under Mac Zimmermann, Kunde taught as professor of fine art at the Berlin University of the Arts in Charlottenburg from 1980 to 1996. Unfortunately no longer able to paint for reasons of ill health, he now lives a secluded life in Bavaria.
- A special exhibition of the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
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