Juvenilia
I had big plans in my youth. I wanted to become an artist. Absolutely. I had never planned any alternatives. But when I finished school and passed my A-levels, I was one thing above all: surprised and broke. Here are some works, in chronological order, from my youth and childhood.
1984
We need some eternity 1-4, Eternity (age 19)
On the cover of Led Zeppelin's 1976 album ‘Presence’, a family is sitting at a table around a sculpture-like object. It's called ‘The Object’. I always thought the thing was surprisingly bad, thinking to myself that a form must also function more harmoniously. I couldn't get the subject out of my head for a very long time and so, at the beginning of 1984, I set out in search of the ‘perfect’, harmonious form.
After this series, I spent three quarters of a year unloading lorries.
1983
Aesthetics of Evil (November 1983, age 19)
More than 60 people were killed in the bomb attack on the US embassy in Beirut on 18 April 1983 by a suicide bomber from Hezbollah. A colour photograph, probably in Zeit magazine, inspired me to create this painting.
1982
Die Welt (The World) (December 1982, age 18)
An early, never realised concept: The World. A lot of Dada, a lot of Nihil, a lot of young man...
Faust (autumn 1982, age 18)
In the German advanced course we read Faust: an early concept for translating text into images. 36 years before the isbn-maschine
Angst (summer 1982, age 18)
School work for art lessons. My art teacher, Mrs Rousselle1 , said in the last lesson of the school year that I should complete a project so that she could grade me (obviously I hadn't handed in enough). One of the assignments for the school year was to depict our fear through the representation of a threatening bird.
In keeping with the emotional state of the early 1980s, the text reads: ‘Why should we try to portray fear through a bird? Fear is real now, it surrounds us every day, we no longer need metaphors for it.’
Der Engel, unfruchtbare Gebärmutter Gottes - The angel, barren womb of God (spring 1982, age 17)
School work for art lessons. The aim was to practise the enlargement of images with using a grid. Coloured paper, oil crayon, pencil, newspaper clipping on paper
1980
Untitled (March 1980, age 15)
Graphic work
1979
Girlfriends (summer 1979, age 15)
In the summer of 1979 I spent a lot of time with a close circle of friends, consisting mainly of two boys and three girls. I started a series of pictures in which I wanted to depict the personality of the individual members. The following two works have survived:
Skeleton (February 1979, age 14)
School project on surrealism and fantastic art.
1978
Self portrait (age 14)
War (age 13)
This is the first and so far only picture that has ever been exhibited. This one in spring 1978 in a small joint exhibition in the bookshop "Art und Weise" in Unterschleißheim. (Thanks again to Mr Art and Mrs Weise (or was it the other way round?)
1975
Santillana del Mar (age 11)
In the summer of 1975, the Kumpfmüller family made a memorable round trip through the north of Spain in a VW Beetle. Father in search of all the country's cloisters, mother with the desire to see the sea. After eating a paella, probably with a little too much adulterated olive oil, my severe diarrhoea forced the family to spend several days in Santillana del Mar. There was an artist there who painted oil paintings in the streets with slightly expressionist colours and shapes. I didn't think the houses were green and purple at all and wanted to do the beautiful town justice in my drawings. The first picture is the view from the inner courtyard of the hotel, I didn't dare move any further away from the toilets, the second picture is the main street.
1968
Flowers? (age 3 years, 9 monts´hs)
The oldest surviving picture
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