A.R. PENCK
GEORG BASELITZ

Opera Gallery Geneva is pleased to present an exhibition featuring works by German artists Georg Baselitz and A.R. Penck. Baselitz and Penck belong to this small group of German artists, sometimes tagged as the Neue Wilde (linking them to the historical Fauves movement), who in the second half of the twentieth century turned their backs on the standard abstractionism of the contemporary international mainstream and deliberately chose to work in a figurative style to express the cultural complexity of a divided Germany. Although working on different sides of the Berlin wall, Baselitz and Penck are the most emblematic figures of the group, the first with his inverted paintings and the second with a figural aesthetic of stick figures and uniform signs and symbols that recall prehistoric drawings. They met in 1956 and maintained a strong friendship.