Martin Kippenberger developed an elaborate concept of aesthetics where the trivial and the subcultural became as influential on his working practice as the masterpieces of art history. Often sparked off by the banality of life, by politics, media and advertising, for Kippenberger there was no subject which could not be turned into art.

In New York zum Russich Abbinden the romance of the New York skyline is dramatically broken by a fusion of compositional and painterly effects. Taking a subject as serious as the Cold War which had reached a critical moment in the mid-1980’s, the work consists of four quadrant canvases joined together within a single frame, placing a permanent ‘crosshair’ on the New York landscape. The hairline gaps between the canvases and the thick silicon under and over the painted surface add a dramatic sense of fragility and corruption to this universal symbol of Western capitalism and power.