At first, it is somewhat hard to believe that The Problem Perspective exhibition at MOCA is a retrospective of one artist’s work. While Martin Kippenberger ceased to leave a medium untouched – his work ranges from sculpture to painting to books to illustrations – he did manage to work within the incredibly broad theme of “self-portraiture.” Upon entering Martin Kippenberger’s retrospective at MOCA, the viewer is greeted by a large installation of what initially appears to be birch wood – soon however we realize that it is simply prints creating the texture of the wood. There is an aspect of illusion and constructed personas in much of the artist’s work.

A series of paintings all on the same sized canvas of black and white images from photographs and newspaper clippings are hung on the wall, but when the entire collection of canvases are stacked, they reach 189cm which was the artist’s height. Kippenberger constantly reinvisioned himself throughout his practice and approached each body of work differently – often using fabricators to execute his concepts. In another series of paintings, he hired a film poster painter to make paintings from photos of himself, choosing the imagery represented as a way to reinvent himself. The smooth surfaces of these poster paintings of his own snapshots are countered with the richly textured paintings rendered by the artist’s own hand. A room of his Untitled paintings from 1988 displays paintings in which the artist portrays himself in his underwear in reference to a famous photograph of Picasso – dealing with the artist’s identity in relation to his work which appears in the background.

Also included in the exhibition were two of his life size sculptures wearing his own clothes entitled “Martin, in the corner, you should be ashamed of yourself.” Kippenberger used the self-portrait as a platform for talking about the universal. His work is also politically aware, addressing issues of German history and culture. While there is such a great range in his ouvre, certain materials and imagery cycle throughout. This exhibition not only shows how prolific an artist Kippenberger was but also how diverse approach to his practice was.

-Anna Ayeroff

(Images from top to bottom: Martin Kippenberger, Ohne Titel (Untitled), 1996, oil on canvas, 70 7/8 x 59 1/16 in., private collection, Austria, © Estate Martin Kippenberger, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne; Martin Kippenberger, Disco Bomb, 1989, mirrored disco ball with synthetic orange wig, 12 in. diam., ed. 4/9, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, gift of Christopher Wool, © Estate Martin Kippenberger, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne
Martin Kippenberger, Ohne Titel (Untitled) from the series Lieber Maler, male mir (Dear Painter, Paint for Me), 1981, acrylic on canvas, 78 3/4 x 118 1/8 in., collection of Wendy Gondeln, © Estate Martin Kippenberger, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne; Martin Kippenberger, Spiderman-Atelier (Spiderman Studio), 1996, wood, metal, plastic, Plexiglas, mirrors, bronze, Styrofoam, painted canvases, vodka bottle, and balsa, 110 1/4 x 120 1/16 x 154 3/4 in., collection of Anton and Annick Herbert, Ghent, Belgium, photo by Philippe Degobert)