Martin Kippenberger

Self-appointed bad boy of German art, has traveled the globe extensively creating superb fictional moments.

His career can be traced from 1979 when he lived in cold war Berlin and mounted such events as Pisscrutch Action, Spying on your Neighbour.

He has invented his own jive talk with which he berates uncomprehending indiginous peoples the world over, usually as a prelude to a good fight in a wild bar.

In the late 1980s he started inventing fictional artists whose 'real' artworks were a pastiche both on contemporary art and society.

He is a founder member of The Lord Jim Lodge whose motto is 'Nobody Helps Anybody'.

His signature artwork is the crooked red streetlamp beloved by the cartoon drunk and of which the German artist and critic Jutta Koether has written, "If you set out to 'under stand' Kippenberger, which is actually impossible, you must become sufficiently involved with him not to be either the streetlamp or the drunk." (Artscribe International No 90)

For many years he collaborated with the Oehlen Brothers, and the three of them have produced an enormous amount of publications and will stop doing so once all their books stacked on a shelf come to one meter in length.

Kippenberger was known for his generosity to other artists whom he 'adopts' on a whim.

 

 

SUPERFICTIONS