(Bleckede/Elbe 1945–2007 Düsseldorf)
‘Manzonivase’, titled, signed, dated Immendorff 92, oil on canvas, 270 x 180 cm, on stretcher

The present work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Jörg Immendorff’s paintings which is currently being compiled by Siegfried Gohr.

Provenance:
Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne (2 labels on the reverse)
From an Austrian Collection

Exhibited:
Bonn, Jörg Immendorff. Malerdebatte, Kunstmuseum Bonn, 1 October – 15 November 1998, exhib. cat., p. 80, fig. 26, titled ‘Manzonivase II’ (label on the reverse)

„In 1991, three peculiar paintings from Immendorffs oeuvre appeared: Manzonivase 1, Manzonovase II and Manzonihügel. These works refer clearly to the Italian conceptual artist Piero Manzoni and his famous work Merda d‘Artista: in a 1961 action, Manzoni enclosed thirty grams of his own feces in cans, in order to then sell them at gold prices for the same weight.“

In the foreground, a vase; behind it, two wrinkled, shadow-casting photos or magazine clippings. In the vase stand tulips and dandelions. The Tulips „according to the language of flowers developed in Victorian England, are a symbol that says: ‚You are not capable of any real emotion‘.“ Decoration is provided by excrement, while tulips, dandelions and the beets lie atop the two photos– „edible plants, to which potency-enhancing effects are attributed.“

The top photo shows among other things a man, pictured from behind, observing a table with turnips carefully placed on a white table cloth. Behind the flowers, a naked woman carrying a box full of turnips flashes forth. The wrinkled second photo shows a gentlemen, apparently excited by these happenings, behind a transport van overflowing with fish. The scene is set against the Café de Flore in Paris, which we find too in Immendorff‘s work, and we can spot guests in the bright glow through the windows. Immendorff drew the basis for his „Café de Flore“ cycle of paintings (which followed his „Café Deutschland“ work) from Paris, which embodied "his bohemian fantasies already in his youth". Immendorff, who didn‘t know the city particulary well, and who spoke no French, felt a romantically idealised affection for Paris. Part of his imaginative fiction was the city‘s cafes, where citizens, intellectuals and artists met. Above all, however, Immendorff was fascinated by the legends of the Parisian surrealist community.“

Hans-Peter Riegel, Immendorff: Die Biographie, Berlin 2010