Martin Kippenberger (born 1953 in Dortmund, died 1997 in Vienna) is one of the foremost and simultaneously most controversial artists of the twentieth century. »Self- promoter«, »enfant terrible«, »art-punk«, »bogey of the bourgeois« – the labels adhering to Kippenberger are as numerous as they are vacuous, but always concentrate on the artist’s exceptional personality. One reason for this might be that a personality cult has always clung to the most prominent artists of twentieth-century art, among whom Kippenberger meanwhile surely belongs. Kippenberger’s work covers painting, drawing and graphics, sculpture, photography, posters, installations, performance, artist’s books and writing, also curatorial and collecting activities; this capability of being classified and all the »isms« of art history are the very things he avoids. »Think today, ready tomorrow« was one of Kippenberger’s famous premises, a pithy expression for the Utopia of artistic originality.

»Martin Kippenberger« is on show at Kunstforum Wien from 8. September – 27. November 2016.