The Capitulation 1966

Konrad Klapheck imagined this telephone with a table and chair – The Capitulation – with oil on canvas. The painting has a sense of stillness about it, but it also feels surreal. The shapes are simplified, almost cartoonish, and the colors are muted. It’s easy to see that Klapheck was thinking about ordinary objects, and he was really drawn to them, like Philip Guston was to shoes. The telephone cord, a long red coil, wraps around the legs of the chair. This line is so bold, it’s almost a dare. You can feel the hand of the artist in the gesture of making this painting, in the way he built up the layers of color. It makes you wonder, what kind of conversation did he want to have, with the objects, and with us? Painters are always talking to each other across time. This piece inspires me to go back to my own studio and start slinging paint, to see what new conversations I can have with the world.