July – September 18, 2016 MKM Museum Küppersmühle for Modern Art, Duisburg
Rolf-Gunter Dienst (1942-2016) is known for his “written” paintings in monumental formats. He transforms moods, sensations and fantasies from nature, art, music and literature into huge fields of color – on the basis of scripted elements that are increasingly absorbed into the paint over time. The MKM Museum Küppersmühle is honoring the work of the artist, who died in March, with a comprehensive retrospective. On display are drawings, gouaches and paintings from various creative phases, selected in close collaboration with the artist.
Starting with his early work, which was influenced by Art Informel, through his first experiments with the so-called “abbreviation”, which he developed and which became the organizing principle of his paintings, to his most recent works, in which he continues to advance the internal structure of his paintings and the development of color, groups of works from different creative phases show the development, but also the constants in Rolf-Gunter Dienst’s work.
The focus is on large-format paintings of up to 10 meters in length, such as Les Voyelles, 2006/07, Macondo IX, 2000 or Der Tag ist die Hoffnung der Nacht, 1992. The exhibition presents some of the large formats in context for the first time, revealing the entire painterly cosmos of Rolf-Gunter Dienst.
