Artwork detail
Untitled (yet)
2008–9
German, b. 1963
Oil on canvas
109 5/8 x 216 1/8 "
University purchase with funds from the David Woods Kemper Memorial Foundation, 2011
WU 2011.0001
In his large-scale paintings and installations, Franz Ackermann explores conceptions of space and place as they connect to such themes as globalization, travel, architecture, and urbanism. His signature “mental maps”—small drawings, sketches, or gouaches drafted on the go—exemplify this interest. Untitled (yet) incorporates Ackermann’s mental maps into larger images, such as an aerial tramway and a modernist housing block, along with more abstract forms. Indicative of the painting overall, the mental maps leave both a visual and conceptual impression. They point to a specific place in the world while also opening up imaginary spaces—an effect amplified by the use of glaringly intense colors. The central image of the tramway, with its fixtures stretched out like tentacles, forms the hub of a matrix of interconnectivity, linking disparate elements and places in the same pictorial space. The painting thus presents space and place as predominantly subjective categories bound up with questions of memory and identity. At the same time, it visualizes our globalized world as flattened, the result of the ways in which increased communication, travel, and migration have affected how we live and perceive today.
