Podcast — Episode 16

Contemporary art in Germany: A Conversation with Gregory H. Williams

Gregory Williams

Our guest on this episode is Gregory H. Williams, the author of Permission to Laugh: Humor and Politics in Contemporary German Art.

Part One:

How did the political and economic changes in 1970s-1980s West Germany (the waning of the economic miracle, the Tendenzwendethe rise to power of conservative Helmut Kohl) affect the art of that period? (1:15) — Three generations of postwar German art (3:15) — The role of humor: Sigmar Polke vs. Martin Kippenberger (7:00) — Kippenberger’s interdisciplinary theatricality (14:00) — Problematic masculinity: bad boys undermining the cult of the heroic genius (17:15) — Translating German art for an American audience: Kippenberger vs. Anselm Kiefer (20:30) — Rosemarie Trockel, Monika Sprueth, Max Hetzler and the 1980s Cologne scene (25:30) — Humans and animals in Trockel’s work (29:00)

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Part Two:

Varieties of humor in West German art: defensive and apathetic, or generative and creative (1:15) — Dealing with a crisis in the modern project: progress stalled, needing an outlet (4:00) — Isa Genzken, modernism and architecture (6:56) — Changes in the biennial era after 1989 (13:15) — A new generation in Cologne: Cosima von Bonin, Christian Nagel, Andrea Fraser, Michael Krebber (18:15) — Günther Förg: modernism, formalism, architecture (22:30)


Gregory WIlliams’s visit to Dallas was jointly sponsored by the Dallas Museum of Art, and by the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at UT Dallas.

The Athenaeum Review podcast is produced by Creative Disturbance.

Filed under Art Historycontemporary artEdith O'Donnell Institute of Art HistorygenderGermany