Page 26 - Studio International - March 1974

EXPERIENCE produced by man himself can be variously
evaluated by the man who can 'read' them:
IN REALITY: rationally or emotionally (or both combined) or
with different degrees of intensity; difficult
THE ART OF signs can either cause mental paralysis or act

A R PENCK as an incentive to learn; internal signs (e.g.
impulses or illness) can outweigh external ones;
A. R. Penck, who was born in Dresden (East the suppression of particular signs has certain
Germany) in 1939 and is still working there, has effects; and so on. There follow some sentences
written two dialogues for this magazine and which are very relevant to Penck's own art.
done a page of symbols strung one after another, `The problem is liberation from automation,
reproduced here (pp. 114,115). In abstract terms and solutions stem from imagination: picturing,
the dialogues are two variations or stages of planning, identifying objectives, limbering up,
expression, of different but comparable execution', 'in which process the real
concreteness; the drawings are a series of achievement was and is the controlled
variations which stand out and set one another assembling of attitudes into a new attitude'. By
off by their intermittently independent `new attitudes' Penck means those which are no
concreteness. You, dear reader and viewer, longer mere reactions to signals or directed to
should try producing such symbols yourself, the end of maintaining the species, but open up
`just to see how long you can go on'1 for 'the the realm of free operation.
question is always how does one continue ? Penck compares signs with attitudes and
What operations should one execute ?'2 This behaviour in the physical field and with ideas in
exercise may interest you as a test. What are you the spiritual field.5 Together with a friend he
drawing ? Decorative whorls ? Calligraphy ? made a short film in 1972, in which he Standart Modell, 1971
Links swooping from one sign to another ? manipulated tools and tried out various postures Cardboard
Even (careful) a harmonized composition ? of the body, for example in relation to the Wolfgang Hahn collection, Cologne
Having tried this, you may perhaps come to symbol-like object of a table. Among his earliest
value qualities in Penck's symbols which, while mature work is a brush drawing of a kneeling a painter; (also a musician and a physical
not in principle unattainable for you, may yet woman supporting herself on her hands, done scientist). The woman in Penck's drawing, in
astonish you with their precision. To quote about 1959/6o, when Penck was twenty. The her kneeling attitude, supporting herself on her
Penck: 'Watch the distinctions. There we see hands, defines a mode of existence and secures
another differentiation; there a comparison for herself an enduring experience. That was
is missing... There the only thing that one tendency, although the attitude of the
will help is to carry on talking'.3 woman also portrays a search for support,
`To carry on talking' from one pictorial word dictated by uncertainty, just as the technique of
to another which shows its distinctively the drawing taken from older art plainly shows
different nature — that is what Penck has tested a non-individual and unstable quality. The
out in numerous writings and has pursued as a kneeling woman, as the embodiment of an
training. In the process he puts the written attitude, can be compared with one of the
word, the single concept or the elements of a objects from the group of Standart Modell
sentence on the same plane as letters and non- Penck made out of the remains of cardboard
alphabetic symbols. Reproduced here is one of boxes, cut up and stuck together, in early 1971.
the hundred pages from one of his books,4 This model, which one might title' Directed
through which key phrases are scattered, such Aggression and Yielding', presents the viewer
as 'Visual Training in the Observation of Signs' with the thought that, besides the single form of
or 'The Problem of Ccmpleteness'. The page attitude shown, other forms are conceivable and
enumerates different sorts of behaviour: practicable, so that it is of the greatest
plundering, sexuality, fighting, defence, nest- importance to develop a sensitivity to the
building, etc. After an intellectually and multiplicity of possible and sometimes
emotionally directed outburst, torrent-like but association-dictated attitudes, gestures and
disciplined, of other associatively developed signs. Alongside the Standart Modell of 1971
word and letter symbols, at the end of the book which radiates freedom resulting from the
Penck embarks again on an 'essay in natural Kneeling Woman, c. 1959/6o capacity to change and, in the very cardboard of
philosophy' which begins as follows : 'Signals Brush drawing, 36.2 x 28 cm. its materials, unconcernedly documents the
Kunstmuseum Basel (K. A* Burckhardt-Koechlin
influence behaviour. Information influences Fund) relativity of any single configuration — the 1959/
behaviour. Signals trigger impulses or restrain 6o drawing seems more an intimation of the
them, and cause excitement or a certain mood. technique of drawing, here as in the other way ahead than a conscious work.
Existence, development, success and decay are earliest studies, is obviously derived from About 1965/6 Penck painted the first of his
all influenced by signs . . . The pragmatic and Rembrandt, and in the style of the figures intuitive-symbolist works, often in large
magical art of Ice Age men leads me to suspect Penck quotes the early Picasso. What interested formats, in which he visualized the basic
that the early results of knowledge of signs was him in imitating Rembrandt's manner of attitudes of people in their contradiction-
involved, but that these were later lost.' There drawing (`Rembrandt reconstruction', as he ridden relations with one another. These were
follow speculations on the reasons for early calls it) was the possibility of capturing a state `Views of Life' whose symbol-like taxonomy is
man's varied chances of survival, these chances with unregimented, even wild, strokes of the changed to tumult by stormy impulsiveness.
being, in Penck's opinion, based on the pen: the capturing of an attitude out of the Alternatives of recognition and action are
different qualities of sign-induced behaviour. midst of uncertainty and haste. At that time portrayed in simple form in a painting of
A given signal that is recognized in nature or Penck felt himself to be a dancer just as much as 1966. Here a greedy, aggressive man with

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