Peter Klasen
Peter Klasen (born 1935 in Lübeck, Germany) has lived and worked in Paris since 1959. A major figure of the French Nouvelle Figuration and Figuration Narrative movements, he developed a distinctive visual language combining the imagery of industrial and urban environments with fragmented representations of the human body. His paintings, photographs and sculptures draw on the visual language of advertising, mass media and everyday life, rendered with a precise, almost photographic finish.
Klasen’s work is characterized by stark contrasts between sensual and mechanical imagery. Industrial objects such as locks, grids, doors, gauges and machinery are juxtaposed with fragments of the female body, creating images that explore themes of desire, confinement, technology and the increasingly standardized environment of modern life. His use of airbrush, collage and sharply delineated forms gives his work a cool, highly controlled aesthetic that has become characteristic of his practice.
Peter Klasen
Une Ampoule
1970
Silkscreen on offset paper, 65 x 50 cm. Edition of 200, signed and numbered.
Peter Klasen’s edition Ampoule (1970) juxtaposes a photographic image of a woman’s face with the image of an electric light bulb, framed by stark red geometric forms. The lower part of the composition presents the face as if reflected in a round mirror, while the light bulb above is isolated against a white ground. The combination of the human figure, everyday object and sharply defined graphic elements creates a striking contrast between the organic and the industrial.
The work exemplifies Klasen’s binary compositions of the late 1960s and early 1970s, in which fragments of the human body are placed in opposition to objects associated with the modern technological and industrial environment. By presenting the face and light bulb as enlarged, isolated images, Klasen transforms familiar elements into enigmatic signs and explores the tension between the human body and the increasingly standardized world of modern life.
EUR 900
