Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster Panoramism and the Abstract Sector VI, 2022
UV pigment print on hand-primed linen
315 x 250 cm (124 x 98 3/8 in)
Edition of 2 plus 1 artist's proof
Panoramism and the Abstract Sector is one of 12 individual panels that make up a 30-meter-long semicircular panorama. UV-printed on hand-primed linen, each panel is a collage of abstract and figurative motifs, of depictions of real-life and fictional characters, set along representations of the Berlin Wall.
Especially conceived for her exhibition at Esther Schipper, Berlin, Panoramism and the Abstract Sector draws on the history of Berlin in the 20th century. A central motif of the panorama is the Berlin Wall: Covered in lyrical abstractions in one section, abstract expressionist in others, depicted in paintings or blanketed with graffiti, the wall forms the backdrop for a myriad of figures and locations. We see artists mingling with actors (in character and as themselves), dancers, fashion designers, musicians, philosophers, theorists, and writers—their depictions quoting from photographs, paintings and drawings. Along a temporal arc—from scenes of crowds atop the wall in November 1989 to later images of toppled sections of graffitied concrete—other sites, mostly in Berlin, and protagonists from earlier moments, especially the Weimar years with its lively, transgressive, and genderbending art and theatre scenes, are interlaced.
Another emphasis, signaled in the title, is abstraction, in particular abstract painting. Thus, Panoramism and the Abstract Sector includes a wide range of reference to 20th century abstraction, especially Color Field Painting and Abstract Expressionism, paying tribute to artists such as Helen Frankenthaler and Lee Krasner.
This panel features artists Anisio Couto, Mark Rothko (in front of one of his paintings) and Elizabeth Siddal (who is better known as model for the Pre-Raphaelite painters), as well as actress Fran Drescher and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s Foxyne. A polar stratospheric cloud hangs above a detail from Gonzalez-Foerster’s 2022 Metapanorama exhibited at the Serpentine Galleries, on the left a fragment of a mural in the basement of Berlin’s Akademie der Künste bears witness to a fleeting moment of ideological “thaw” in the GDR in 1957-58. The writing on the lower part draws on Jean-Luc Godard’s 1991 film Allemagne neuf zero.
If hung on the wall the panel should be installed at a height of 17 cm from the ground.
Especially conceived for her exhibition at Esther Schipper, Berlin, Panoramism and the Abstract Sector draws on the history of Berlin in the 20th century. A central motif of the panorama is the Berlin Wall: Covered in lyrical abstractions in one section, abstract expressionist in others, depicted in paintings or blanketed with graffiti, the wall forms the backdrop for a myriad of figures and locations. We see artists mingling with actors (in character and as themselves), dancers, fashion designers, musicians, philosophers, theorists, and writers—their depictions quoting from photographs, paintings and drawings. Along a temporal arc—from scenes of crowds atop the wall in November 1989 to later images of toppled sections of graffitied concrete—other sites, mostly in Berlin, and protagonists from earlier moments, especially the Weimar years with its lively, transgressive, and genderbending art and theatre scenes, are interlaced.
Another emphasis, signaled in the title, is abstraction, in particular abstract painting. Thus, Panoramism and the Abstract Sector includes a wide range of reference to 20th century abstraction, especially Color Field Painting and Abstract Expressionism, paying tribute to artists such as Helen Frankenthaler and Lee Krasner.
This panel features artists Anisio Couto, Mark Rothko (in front of one of his paintings) and Elizabeth Siddal (who is better known as model for the Pre-Raphaelite painters), as well as actress Fran Drescher and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s Foxyne. A polar stratospheric cloud hangs above a detail from Gonzalez-Foerster’s 2022 Metapanorama exhibited at the Serpentine Galleries, on the left a fragment of a mural in the basement of Berlin’s Akademie der Künste bears witness to a fleeting moment of ideological “thaw” in the GDR in 1957-58. The writing on the lower part draws on Jean-Luc Godard’s 1991 film Allemagne neuf zero.
If hung on the wall the panel should be installed at a height of 17 cm from the ground.