Paul Thek
Paul Thek ( born November 2, 1933, Brooklyn, † August 10 1988 in New York City ) was an American painter and object artist.
Life
George Joseph Thek was born the second of four children. His parents were German, or Irish descent. 1950 studied Thek at the Art Students League of New York and at the Pratt Institute of Art in Brooklyn, then from 1951 to 1954 at the Cooper Union School of Arts in New York. In 1954 he moved to Miami and worked in various professions. Here are the first drawings were: studies in charcoal and pencil, followed by abstract monochrome watercolors and oil paintings. Since 1955, he called himself Paul Thek. 1957, Thek his work for the first time ( in a gallery in Miami) from. After his return to New York in 1959 were among his circle of friends alongside Peter Hujar and Joe Raffaele, the artists Eva Hesse and Ann Wilson and Gene Swenson and Susan Sontag. 1959-1962 he worked as a textile designer in the Prince Studios, New York. From 1962 to 1964 he lived and worked in Rome, Thek, 1964, he returned to New York. In 1964, he starred in Screen Test by Andy Warhol. 1966 created works that were created by casting his body and body parts. From the late 1960s he attracted with his process and sitespecific installations attention.
In the 1970s, Thek lived in Italy, many works created in collaboration with photographer Peter Hujar. In 1976 he returned to New York. On August 10, 1988, the artist died in New York. Susan Sontag dedicated her book AIDS and Its Metaphors ( German title AIDS and its metaphors ) to his memory.
Work
The tension-filled oeuvre Thek can be assigned to specific artistic media: he was a draftsman, painter, sculptor, installation artist and creator expansive environments. Among contemporary artists Thek enjoys cult status. " His works show mystical, religious and critical social injustices as well as the art world over, where he commutes sometimes contradictory between nomadisierendem hippies and transfiguring charismatics, but also often a portion of melancholy and humor in his work plays into it. "
Paul Thek exhibited among others at the documenta 4, 1968, and the documenta 5, 1972, in each case in Kassel.
Among his best known works include: The Procession, 1969, ( Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam); Pyramid / A Work in Progress, 1971 ( Moderna Museet, Stockholm ) and The Tomb - Death of a Hippie, 1967 ( Whitney Museum of American Art, New York). The world's most comprehensive collection of works by Thek is in the Museum columbaria, which has submitted in 2012 a stock catalog of his works. Works of Paul Thek gives Columba not only to other museums and galleries, including for the first major American retrospective Paul Thek - Diver from October 2010 to September 2011 in New York (Whitney Museum of American Art ), Pittsburgh ( Carnegie Museum of Art) and Los Angeles ( Hammer Museum ), but he is also in almost every annual exhibition represented. In addition, his works are the focus of the sixth annual exhibition in columbaria Art is Liturgy. Paul Thek and the others. September 15, 2012 to August 15, 2013 in Cologne.