DER GRÜNE HÜHNERFICKER IST ENDLICH TRAURIG, Galerie Paul Maenz, Cologne, 1982
Artists: Hans Peter Adamski, Peter Bömmels, Walter Dahn, Jiří Georg Dokoupil, Gerard Kever, and Gerhard Naschberger
Duration: May 29–June 27, 1981
Dimensions: 14.8 x 21.1 cm
Further Information: Founded in 1979 in a backyard painting studio in the Mülheim district of Cologne, the Mülheimer Freiheit artist group included only male, expressionistic, and abstract painters. The name referred to the studio’s address, and was supposedly suggested by Wolfgang Max Faust, according to the Cologne-based art dealer Paul Maenz, who represented the group until 1983. Jiří Georg Dokoupil, often thought of as the head of the group (see this interview with Paul Maenz), together with Hans Peter Adamski, Peter Bömmels, Walter Dahn, Gerard Kever, and Gerhard Naschberger participated in many shows together. Many of them had significant commercial success in the US within a very short amount of time. The group had bold and provocative approaches to the art world, offering irony and humorous that was lacking in the more traditional conceptual and minimal art that had dominated for so long—yet they nonetheless profited from the market they critiqued. The group was dissolved in 1984.
ALW
Images: Images of the invitation and all other archival documents shown on this page, apart from the videos, are part of the online collection of Archiv der Avantgarden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
