ACTIVITIES NOW

Olafur Eliasson at On View 21

MARTIN KIPPENBERGER / LARS SCHWANDER

Martin Kippenberger (1953-1997) was undoubtedly one of the greatest German painters of the 20th century. On October 25^th 1996 I had an agreement of a photographic session with him through Galerie Mikael Andersen, Bredgade, Copenhagen. The day before we were four people for dinner at l'Education Nationale, a French restaurant in what is popularly called "The Piss Drain" at the centre of the city. It became very late. We sat and drank red wine until the restaurant closed. Before that, Kippenberger had shown some of the tricks he knew, i.a. with twisting his tongue... When we were out on the street at night, I asked if we still had an appointment the following day. And he replied that there were no problems. Whatsoever.

The next day, exactly at 10, as we had agreed, the door opened and in came Kippenberger wearing his matching Burberry cap and scarf and a long black coat. And in his hand he held the obviously obligatory cigarette. He exuded a rare authority. I asked him to stand in front of a white wall like we were in a studio. And we did pictures in front of his paintings, which were still stored along one wall. The motifs of his paintings were primarily tables and chairs, so I subsequently asked Kippenberger to sit in a chair, both against the white wall (again), in front og the already hung pictures as well as a series where he partly stands in front of his paintings and sits in the chair that I had placed in front of his pictures. In this way, Kippenberger reflects in a chair in front of his painted chairs.

One of his long-term collaborators, Christine Hahn of the all female punk group Malaria!, who also helped set up the large retrospective Kippenberger exhibition, "sehr gut / very good" in Hamburger Barnhof, Berlin, 2013, has stated:

How long before Martin died were these taken? He looks very haunted. Starkly real, strong, and sad - all at the same time. I knew him and worked with him when he was 25 and just beginning his career as a serious artist. He was so handsome and alive, but even then he was a slave to alcohol. He was a driven artist, a generous human being. Very lovable and inspiring

We did these pictures at the end of October 1996, barely five months passed before Kippenberger died in Vienna. These are also some of the latest recordings of him. It's strange to look back at these photographs: Kippenberger appears here in his artistic zenith and only 43 years old. At the same time he seems both young and old.

We did in total three rolls of film consisting of twelve images each: two black and white films and one colour. A total of 36 photographs, all of which have now been acquired by Galleri Stalke Collection, which is also the first time that the photographs have been created in their entirety. Some pictures have been exhibited in Denmark and abroad, e.g. at the National History Museum, Frederiksborg Castle - in Galerie Mikael Andersen (Copenhagen, 2001), Galerie Veneuille St.-Péres (Paris, 2001) and in Ural Vision Gallery (Budapest, 2016).

Lars Schwander is among others represented in following collections: Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris), The Royal Library (Copenhagen), Musée de la photographie (Charleroi), Museum of Photographic arts (Odense), Ros Photo (St. Petersburg), Louis Vuitton Foundation (Paris), Thomas Olbricht Collection (Germany), Lenono Photo Archive (New York), Stalke Gallery (Kirke Saaby), various private collections in Europe and USA.

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