Kippenberger is most renowned for his seminal role in contemporary “Bad Painting,” as well as for his sprawling sculptural installations, but this exhibit also places due emphasis on Kippenberger’s most mundane area of production — his poster, invitation and book designs.

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Kippenberger, to me, epitomizes the role of the modern artist. You can quarrel with his methods, personality or persona, but its hard to say that his work didn’t speak to the time in which he lived.  He was very aware of the conversation and history of art as is evidenced in his preoccupation with inside the art world jokes and pokes at fellow artists that require a lot of contextural knowledge to fully appreciate.  He was also an artist that shed the role of ‘painter’ and was able to work across a wide spectrum of media and styles.

Here is a great review of the original show at MoCA in Los Angeles

A great Village Voice article

Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective

March 1, 2009–May 11, 2009

The Joan and Preston Robert Tisch Exhibition Gallery, sixth floor

One of the most significant and influential artists of our time, Martin Kippenberger (1953–1997) produced a complex and richly varied body of work from the mid-1970s until his untimely death in 1997 at the age of forty-four. This ambitious, large-scale exhibition includes key selections and bodies of work from his entire career: paintings, sculpture, works on paper, installations, multiples, photographs, posters, announcement cards, books, and music. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue—published by MOCA and co-published by the MIT Press—which will constitute a comprehensive and scholarly examination of the artist’s career.

This couldn’t be a more timely review of heavy weight constructivists at a time when the term, and meaning of the movement are constantly being thrown around (See Shepard Fairey/ObamArt).  The ideas of constructivism are often not sited directly as the movement itself and ideas behind it are often lost in the coopting of the term for the needed purpose.  That’s precisely what makes the Tate show so special.  You can see first hand, what the movement was about, how it was embodied in these two leading figures and how its spirit was defined by the philosophy that drove this work.

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The Constructivists challenged the idea of the work of art as a unique commodity, explored more collective ways of working, and looked at how they could contribute to everyday life through design, architecture, industrial production, theatre and film.  In addition, constructivists sought to speak directly to the ‘common man’  and give something tangible through art to everyone.

Of course, one might argue that figuration and representation are a more common language than abstraction, but constructivism at its core has a rather Utopian world view.  A new Russian Utopia, rising from the ashes of its past.

For more info on this be sure to check out the Tate exhibit in person or online here.

There are also some good articles on the subject here:

Two Coats of Paint

The Times UK

The Times Waldemar Januszczak