Cafe Deutschland 1984

Jorg Immendorff made Cafe Deutschland with paint on canvas, and what strikes me is how he's wrangling with history, memory, and identity. The colors are intense, almost hallucinatory, a way of plunging into the depths of a nation's psyche. There's so much going on, but the materiality keeps me grounded. You can see the physicality of the paint, thick in some areas, thin and transparent in others. The way the figures seem to be fighting against each other, is kind of like the way he is fighting with the paint. I can see the artist’s presence, his struggle, and his joy in the very act of painting. It reminds me a bit of Philip Guston, with that similar kind of grappling with the messiness of being human. It's a painting that doesn't offer easy answers, but invites us to question, to feel, and to connect with the ongoing conversation of art.