KO Götz
December 13, 2013 - March 2, 2014
New National Gallery

In February 2014, Karl Otto Götz will celebrate his 100th birthday. To mark this occasion, the National Gallery is dedicating a comprehensive exhibition of his work. Around 60 of the artist's main works will provide an insight into Götz's complex oeuvre, which has now spanned over eight decades.

Swirling, exploding shapes and emblematic, abstract structures – Götz's work is characterized by the search for immediate, free form, for a “poetic expression in the non-representational,” as the artist himself describes it. The exhibition aims to draw attention primarily to serial processes, to coincidences, but also to recurring image ideas and rhythms that give his images both dynamism and order. Götz's influence on future generations of artists, such as his famous students Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter, also becomes apparent.

The spectrum of the presentation ranges from early “air pump watercolors” close to surrealism, photograms and image invoices to the famous squeegee works of the 1950s and 1960s to concise examples from the late works. This overview not only makes the diversity of KO Götze's abstract imagery visible. The large, powerful images will have a special impact in the puristic upper hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie - and thus underline the immense importance of his work for the international development of art after 1945.