Untitled (04.B.0101) 2004

Gunther Forg created this untitled painting, composed of blocks of colour, sometime before 2013. Forg was a German artist whose practice spanned photography, sculpture, and painting. This work seems to come out of the traditions of geometric abstraction which was prevalent at the Bauhaus school in Germany. The Bauhaus was a hugely influential art and design school that operated in the interwar period until it was shut down by the Nazi regime. Forg's teachers included Joseph Beuys, another German artist whose politically engaged work was highly influential. In his photographic series, Forg documented the architecture of the Bauhaus. The cool and sparse geometry of this painting may be read as a commentary on the complex relationship between modernism and German national identity. Art historians consult archives and other resources in order to better understand the precise historical and cultural context of the work.