Peter Klasen - 2000

An original hand-signed screen print on vellum by German artist Peter Klasen. Numbered 17/45, it measures approximately 46x33 cm and is framed under glass in a 48x38cm frame. Peter Klasen is a German artist known for his collage-like Pop Art paintings and prints. Using an airbrush, the artist contrasts images of industrial objects like pressure gauges and hydraulic circuits, with sexually charged images of nude women. These juxtapositions are the artist's means of confronting themes of confinement, political control and fear. “The human body disappears from Klasen's work behind the heavy doors, grills and hoods of trucks, cars, prisons,” critic Claude Bouyeure said of the paintings. “In a word, behind all these places which, physically, psychologically, symbolically, constrict, confine, isolate, oppress and which now padlock the entire frontal aspect of the paintings. Born on August 18, 1935 in Lübeck, Germany, his father died during World War II, an event that deeply hurt the artist growing up. Klasen then studied at the Universität der Künste Berlin, where he absorbed the avant-garde ideas of Will Grohmann and Hans Richter. Installed in Paris in 1959, he participated in the founding of the La Nouvelle Figuration movement with the artists Bernard Rancillac and Valerio Adami. The aim of La Nouvelle Figurationniste was to criticize consumer culture, rather than celebrating it like Andy Warhol. Klasen currently lives and works in Paris, France. His works are part of the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris.