K.O. GÖTZ UND RISSA

Karl Otto Götz aka K. O. Götz, who celebrates his 100th birthday on February 22, 2014, is one of the most important artists within the history of postwar Germany. He is considered one of the main proponents of “German Informalism .” This non-objective approach to painting is Germany’s contribution to a worldwide movement that broke new formal ground, after 1945, by instituting a dissolution of classical forms. Götz taught as a professor from 1959 to 1979 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Numerous prominent artistic personalities emerged from his class, including Gotthard Graubner, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, HA Schult, Franz Erhard Walther and the artist Rissa. The work of Rissa (Karin Götz), married to K. O. Götz since 1965, also operates at that area of tension between objectivity and abstraction; while the formal language employed is somewhat objective-constructive in its approach, it is also permeated with a clear vividness of color and texturing of surfaces.
In cooperation with Geuer&Geuer Düsseldorf, with kind the support of the K. O. Götz und Rissa-Stiftung, of the collection of Philomena und Manfred Kappes, Alsdorf, and of the collection of Annelie und Georg Retzlaff, Cologne.