Collaboration Peter Hill and J.J. Voss (Photographer)
S U P E R F I C T I O N S
Martin Kippenberger
One of Martin Kippenberger's self-portraits from his Hotel Notepaper series, 1990
Self-appointed bad boy of German art, now travels the globe extensively creating superb
fictional moments.
His career can be traced from 1979 when he lived in cold war Berlin and mounted such events
as Pisscrutch Action, Spying on your Neighbour.
He has invented his own jive talk with which he berates uncomprehending indiginous peoples
the world over, usually as a prelude to a good fight in a wild bar.
In the late 1980s he started inventing fictional artists whose 'real' artworks were a
pastiche both on contemporary art and society.
He is a founder member of The Lord Jim Lodge whose motto is 'Nobody Helps Anybody'.
His signature artwork is the crooked red streetlamp beloved by the cartoon drunk and of
which the German artist and critic Jutta Koether has written, "If you set out to 'under
stand' Kippenberger, which is actually impossible, you must become sufficiently involved
with him not to be either the streetlamp or the drunk." (Artscribe International No 90)
For many years he has collaborated with the Oehlen Brothers and the three of them have
produced an enormous amount of publications and will stop doing so once all their books
stacked on a shelf come to one meter in length.
Kippenberger is known for his generosity to other artists whom he 'adopts' on a whim.
