Acrylic on canvas
Signed lower left. 99,5 x 80 cm (39,1 x 31,4 in)

PROVENANCE: Private collection Baden-Württemberg.

Stick-figures are Penck’s trademark, they are often compared with pre-historic cave paintings. This work also has a similar effect, laced with enigmatic pictograms in strikingly clear colors. The pictograms are part of a coded language that the artist had already began working on in the 1960s when was still living in the GDR. The artist attempted to create a catalog of characters by means of which the present world can be represented clear and brief. The artist remained silent about the decryption, it is up to the observer to give meaning to the use of forms. [SM].