Jorg Immendorff, 'Café Deutschland: Contemplating The Question - Where Do I Stand', 1987
oil on canvas, 250 x 330cm
"Art is universal. That may sound like a cliché, but art is more than something material; it has to do with the spirit." Jorg Immendorff, 2003
The German artist Jorg Immendorff died on Monday 28 May at the age of 61. He is survived by his wife Oda and 5-year-old daughter Ida. As Associated Press noted yesterday, Immendorff had long suffered from the paralyzing disease ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Thomas Meyer, the neurologist who treated him, said Immendorff died following a cardiac arrest at his home in Duesseldorf. Born June 14, 1945, in the northern town of Bleckede, Immendorff studied under Joseph Beuys at the Duesseldorf Art Academy in the 1960s. He became involved in that decade's student protest movement. His rejection of traditional painting -- in 1966, he painted the words "Stop Painting" across a picture -- led him to abandon the canvas temporarily and move on to his so-called "Lidl" program of neo-Dadaistic happenings, involving baby talk and symbols. He was kicked out of the Duesseldorf school because of these activities, but in 1996 became an art professor there.
Immendorff worked as an art teacher at a high school in the city from 1968 to 1980. In the 1970s he was a member of a neo-expressionist German group known as the "Neue Wilde." Immendorff addressed Germany's post-war split in his best-known works, the "Cafe Deutschland" series of large paintings, which he began in 1978. The boldly colorful canvases, set in fictitious settings such as discos and cafes, were rich in symbolism and featured figures such as the leaders of West and East Germany and playwright Bertolt Brecht.
He was a prominent supporter of Germany's center-left chancellor from 1998 to 2005, Gerhard Schroeder, and painted a portrait of the former leader to hang in the chancellery. Immendorff handed over the work -- painted in gold -- in March.
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