Supported by: Department for Culture and Education of the German Consulate General Shanghai, Shanghai International Culture Association, Michael Werner Gallery
Sponsored by: Mercedes me, ART ZHOU, Dragon Fine Art, Minds Lab Design, Art & Collection Group, and ofo

Exhibition Description

Coinciding with the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Germany, Fosun Foundation Shanghai presents a solo exhibition of the work of renowned German artist A.R. Penck from November 9, 2017, to January 7, 2018. “Will Sign Become Reality?” is the artist’s first large-scale show since he passed away in May of this year.

As one of the greatest contemporary artists of the twentieth century, A.R. Penck strove to find a universal symbolic language within painting and sculpture that could express psychological structures common to all humankind. His unique painterly style began to earn him international acclaim in the 1980s. This exhibition brings together nearly 100 of the artist’s most iconic sculptures, large-scale paintings, watercolors, and installation works—a comprehensive presentation of the life of the German post-war art master. It aims to review and systematize Penck’s nearly sixty-year evolution as an artist: his solitary explorations in the 1960s and 70s, his research into symbolic systems in the 80s and 90s, and the new lines of thought that emerged when he returned to artistic motifs after the turn of the century.