Günther Förg

Gunther Forg usually has a precise idea in mind before beginning a series of paintings, yet he never makes sketches. When his paintings are sent out for exhibitions, he sometimes produces small replicas, loose canvases in frames or wooden panels mounted on a second panel, in order to preserve their presence in his studio. He does this systematically between 2002 and 2007, building up a miniature collection of his most recent paintings in his studio, and hanging them close together, like butterflies in a naturalist's box.

Galerie Lelong & Co. devotes this exhibition to these small formats, which have rarely been shown alongside the larger works they replicate. This is the theme of this exhibition, conceived together with the artist's estate and in collaboration with Hauser & Wirth.

It is in his large paintings that the freshness, elegance and suppleness of Forg's touch on the canvas are most apparent. These works often reference the painters he admired: Philip Guston, Edward Munch, Henri Matisse, Robert Motherwell, etc. The small formats reveal, through the change in scale, the pre-existing idea and the pictorial elements (composition, colours) that Forg considers to be the most important. We can then penetrate to the heart of the creation, as if we were observing the artist at work.

Gunther Forg was born in 1952 in Fussen (Germany) and died in 2013 in Freiburg. Since 1997, Galerie Lelong has organised a dozen exhibitions of the artist's work in Paris and published several catalogues. His work was the subject of a major retrospective, titled 'Gunther Forg - A Fragile Beauty,' in 2018 at the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam) and then at the Dallas Museum of Art.