Corbett vs. Dempsey

Peter Brötzmann

By Michelle Grabner. Time Out Chicago / Issue 142 : Nov 15-21, 2007

Dieter Roth's mixed-media experiments, Fluxus' assimilation of the everyday and Arte Provera's use of raw materials come to mind when viewing Peter Brötzmann's exhibition, "Paintings & Objects." Brötzmann, an internationally renowned free-jazz reedist, has also dedicated his life to making artwork. A contemporary of the German neo-expressionists, Brötzmann is less image-driven than his celebrated contemporaries: Markus Lüpertz, Sigmar Polke and Georg Baselitz. Instead, the mnemonic associations conveyed by the physical and material world compel his works. Raw, improvised and unpolished, Brötzmann's objects and paintings course with wearisome detritus. Tin can lids, feathers, bristle brushes and coffee stains litter his compositions with a physical force that is severe yet shrewdly composed, rough-hewn and oxidized yet artful and astute.

The strongest work, Grosses Luftbild (1972-2002), is a craggy, cracked canvas sporting abstract clouds made from scraps of linen. Gas tank, Remscheid (2004) is tiny by comparison but equally enthralling. Less abstract than Grosses Luftbild and painted with ink and instant coffee, it pictures a petroleum holding tank in an amber vista. Like many of Corbett vs. Dempsey's projects, Brötzmann's exhibition underscores an unfashionable modern practice. Yet, it is most often in these overlooked, lifelong commitments to art-making that we find inspiration, accomplishment and mastery.