There are always reports of snowboarders filming their dangerous off-piste stunts, or travel influencers who think they can ignore warning signs to get the perfect photo. Some people might say "actions like this never happened before" – but far from it! And the best proof comes from Lempertz' photography auction, which will take place on 1 June in Cologne.
In addition to works by photographers such as Helen Levitt, David LaChapelle, Man Ray, Wilhelm von Gloeden, Brassaï and Irving Penn, Willi Ruge will be represented at the auction with an 'Action Selfie' from 1931.
In the 1910s, Willi Ruge set up his own photo agency from Berlin and documented current political events during the Weimar Republic. Yet, it was his photo series I Photograph Myself in a Parachute Crash from 1931, which was even printed in overseas magazines, which caused the most upheaval. The name of the photo series already reveals its content: Ruge during a parachute jump over Berlin, photographing himself with the help of an automatically-triggered camera. The photo from the series offered at Lempertz shows Ruge during the fall with a Berlin suburb in the background. Originally from an Argentine press archive, the print is the only known one along with another currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Ruge's photo series perfectly reflects the unshakable belief in technical progress and the modern lifestyle of the interwar years. However, other artists chose to focus on the discrepancies of the period as a motif, and contrasted the irrepressible lust for life of the 'Roaring Twenties' with the suffering of those wounded by war and the victims of the rapidly increasing inflation.
One of these was George Grosz, who went to the restaurants and cabarets, as well as to the backyards and dive bars of his hometown Berlin, for inspiration for his critical caricatures. The watercolour drawing Crooks at the Counter from 1922 is staged in a rather seedy pub, a work that is rarely offered on the art market in terms of its size and colour. Certainly, bidders won't let the three scowling protagonists deter them from buying such an "important image from George Grosz's best creative period".
Grosz's fascinating work will be up for auction in the Evening Sale with Modern and Contemporary Art, which will take place on 1 June at Lempertz. The 97 lots on offer all include well-known artists such as Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Lovis Corinth, Karel Appel, Richard Hamilton, Günther Förg and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Gerhard Richter will be represented at the auction with four works, including this painting, which dates from the early days of Richter's turn to abstraction. Richter, who had previously worked on photo-paintings, thus embarked on a new path, at the end of which he would become one of the most expensive living artists.
Abstract Image is one of the ten small-format works of the new orientation that Richter executed in 1977, which have an experimental character that mirrors his change in motifs.
It's well known that Georg Baselitz likes to turn everything upside down. In the 1970s, he became world-famous with his ‘Pictures on the Head’, which turned conventionally interpretable works into abstractions that could only be watched. Before that, Baselitz had dealt with his ‘Fracture-Images’ and even before with his ‘Hero-Images’, which were in truth ‘Anti-Hero-Images’.
In the early 2000s, Baselitz began to take up his earlier groups of works and to a certain extent remix them. At this auction, Lempertz is offering Der Jäger ('Remix') from this 2007 series – one of the top lots on offer.
Two more exciting auctions of Modern and Contemporary Art will follow on 2 June. The auctions take place at the sale rooms of Lempertz, Neumarkt 3, in Cologne. Previews are from 28-31 May.
Discover all current lots at auction from Lempertz right here