About the Artist
Jorg Immendorf
Jorg Immendorff (1945 – 2007) was a German painter, sculptor, stage designer and art professor. He was a member of the art movement Neue Wilde. Immendorff often worked in "grand cycles of paintings" that often lasted years at a time and were political in nature. Notable cycles include LIDL, Maoist Paintings, Cafe Deutschland , and The Rake's Progress.
The first body of work that Immendorff gave a name to were his LIDL paintings, sculptures, performances, and documents, that he executed during 1968-1970. The name, "LIDL" was inspired by the sound of a child's rattle makes and much of his work from this period included the iconography of new beginnings and innocence. LIDL is comparable to Dadaist but unlike the Dadist movement it never became an established group but rather consisted of a variety of artists (including James Lee Byars, Marcel Broodthaers, Nam June Paik, and Joseph Beuys) participating in actions and activities.
The art-historian Pamela Kort wrote this of Immendorf's LIDL works:
"LIDL ridiculed elitist art traditions, the cult of creative 'genius', and the precious aesthetic object. The artist countered these hierarchies by assembling a body of pretentious iconographic motifs drawn from the make-believe world of the child - turtles, dogs, goldfish, playhouses, and polar bears - which he transformed into the 'working material' of what he hoped would be a new functional art form."
-Wikipedia
