Georg Herold (1947) - Das Tafelwerk

Georg Herold (born 1947), Das Tafelwerk, 1992.

28 Farboffsets with facsimilated Polaroids on stiff cardboard, 68 x 51 cm, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln 1992.

About
The German artist Georg Herold (born 1947 in Jena) is among the leading representatives of conceptual contemporary art in Germany. Since the 1980s he has developed a body of work that combines sculpture, painting and installation, often working with simple materials, irony and social-critical commentary. Herold studied at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts under Sigmar Polke and Franz Erhard Walther and later became a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.

The work “Tafelwerk” (1992) belongs to Herold’s characteristic pieces in which he uses everyday materials and reduced forms to address questions of value, authority and artistic meaning. The designation “Tafelwerk” deliberately plays with the double meaning of teaching board, image carrier and presentation surface, referring thereby to the mediation and construction of knowledge within art and society.
Works from this phase exemplify Georg Herold’s conceptual practice of the early 1990s, in which he ironizes traditional image formats while also drawing on art-historical presentation forms. The artist’s works are now in important international collections and museums and are regarded as a formative position in German art after 1980.