Lot 7 | Thomas Bayrle | Feuer im Weizen

BAYRLE, THOMAS
1937 Berlin

Title: Feuer im Weizen.
Subtitle: Series of 8 silkscreens.
Date: 1970/71.
Technique: Each: Colour silkscreen on vellum. Additionally title page.
Depiction Size: Each: 47,5 x 64,5cm.
Notation: Signed, dated, titled and numbered.
Publisher: Draier-Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. (publisher).
Number: 62/100.
Frame: Framed. Not examined out of the frame.

Provenance:
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin (directly from artist)

Thomas Bayrle is a German artist who has become known for his work in the fields of graphic design, painting and sculpture. His work is characterized by his examination of mass production and consumer culture. This is certainly also due to his training as a graphic designer. Bayrle is known for his serial works, which create complex patterns and structures from simple, repetitive motifs. His chosen subjects are a reflection of political systems and the relationship between the individual and society.

The masses as a living ornament
After completing his training, Bayrle founded Gulliver Presse together with Bernhard Jäger and published numerous artist's books. Influenced by the serial works of Pop Art, he created his so-called "Superforms" in the 1960s. He assembled individual motifs taken from the advertising industry and popular culture into large-format pictures. These collages reflect the fusion of the masses into a "living ornament" in which the individual is absorbed as part of a larger whole.

Feuer im Weizen
In the context of sexual liberation and political resistance, Bayrle published "Feuer im Weizen" (Fire in the Wheat) in 1970 with the Frankfurt-based März-Verlag. The work plays with bourgeois conventions and presents itself in the design of a picture book with glossy cardboard pages. The raster images printed in bold colors show provocative scenes whose endless repetitions form a mass ornament of sexual acts. These pop-like illustrations emphasize the erotic impact of the images and illustrate Bayrle's critical view of social norms.

Complex patterns and structures
The present work shows such a grid of alternating rows of men and women with a red flag that provides information about the work. The completely undressed men and the women, dressed only in black fishnet stockings and heels, are painted in red and blue. Bayrle shows them in motion, each with one leg bent and one arm stretched up in the air. One behind the other, they appear to be dancing in rows. The seemingly endless repetitions of the same motifs create a complex, unique pattern typical of Bayrle's work, the individual becomes part of the mass as a living ornament. In 2008-2009 it was exhibited at his solo exhibition "Looping" at the Museum Ludwig under the direction of Kasper König.