Questioning and critically examining social and political conditions, and revealing both the possibility and the necessity of their transformation, has been a constant in Chris Reinecke’s work since the 1960s. As a co-founder of the artistic cooperative LIDL, she played a decisive role in establishing a new concept of art in postwar West Germany.
The participatory actions that defined the LIDL years were intended to make the participants aware of—and allow them to experience—the potential of their own actions: art as a social and political experiment. With “Mietersolidarität” (Tenants’ Solidarity), which emerged from LIDL in the early 1970s, campaigned against exploitative rents, housing shortages, and speculation, and offered tenants help and advice, the boundaries between art and activism dissolved. Works from this period are currently on view in the exhibition “Grund und Boden. How We Live Together”, curated by Kolja Reichert, at K21 in Düsseldorf.

We take this as an opportunity to present a selection of Chris Reinecke’s works in our showroom.

Works from the 1960s and early 1970s trace Reinecke’s development: beginning with her own person, which she situates in space while simultaneously surveying it from her subjective perspective; moving on to an engagement with the human body and its transformation into socio-economic capital, which began in the 1960s; and finally toward an observation of social and political conditions that she sought to make recognizable as changeable for people.

When the LIDL collective ultimately broke apart due to artistic and personal differences, Chris Reinecke repositioned herself. For her, the idea of participation as an artistic means that could also initiate democratic processes had failed.

In the decades that followed, she developed a painterly position in which she radically transformed the traditional form of painting into an autonomous standpoint: away from the format of the easel painting, away from canvas, and toward paper as a truly open and malleable image carrier.

Political and social questions still run through her work as a guiding thread. However, Chris Reinecke has now adopted the position of an observer. In works from the early 1990s, she refers to German reunification and the collapse of communism. In these works she uses excerpts from newspapers (her preferred source of information) and combines them with painterly elements. Chris Reinecke is not a historian; the works are rather snapshots—subjective attempts to make sense of an eventful and confusing time. Even then, these works could not be read as euphoric. From today’s perspective, they appear almost like dark premonitions of a world thrown off balance by hegemonic upheavals.

The most recent work in the exhibition, “Gewölbe für Alle. Unter der Kuppel (Vault for All. Under the Dome)” (2016/17), was created under the impression of Donald Trump’s first inauguration. The partly collaged work depicts the U.S. Capitol in Washington, loosely outlined with an ink brush against a harshly hatched ground, with a few strokes of watercolor in red and yellow. Has someone already set the fire? An almost clairvoyant menetekel.

Even decades later, Chris Reinecke’s works tell us more than merely of their time. Their undiminished relevance and urgency are often striking. She has always preserved a great openness in her work: in her approach to material and form, in gesture, in her access to her subjects, and in her thinking: area open upwards - Region nach oben geöffnet!