Bloomberg Profiles Michael Krebber - ‘An Artist That Investors Love’
Dec 20, 2017
Michael Krebber recently became the latest abstract artist to be featured in the pages of Bloomberg. Is that a surprise, that Bloomberg, a company that since 1929 has been dedicated solely to matters of business and finance, profiles abstract artists, or any artists for that matter? Then it will really shock you to hear that the company actually offers more frequent, and often more interesting arts coverage than most major newspapers, and even some publications devoted exclusively to art. The reason Bloomberg dives deep into art is obviously because the art market is one of the most dynamic places an investor can store wealth. It is a place one can put a lot of money quickly and relatively safely, and it has the fringe benefit of being interesting—talking about your new collection of Minimalist lithographs goes a lot farther at most cocktail parties than talking about how many partial shares of Berkshire Hathaway you just optioned. Krebber was profiled this month for the same reason Laura Owens was featured back in November—very rich people are buying work by both artists, causing their prices to go up. Unlike Owens, who appeals to millionaires and billionaires, Krebber also appeals to, well, thousandaires. He has been around for decades, and as both a painter and a teacher has heavily influenced the next generation of artists. But his prices have remained undervalued compared to his peers. Now that is changing. Though one could still potentially buy a Krebber work on paper for less than $10,000, or a painting for less than $100,000, those days are coming to an end. But since, in general, Bloomberg focuses its coverage not on the aesthetics of an artist, but on the market potential of their work, here is a look at what Krebber has accomplished in the studio, and what makes him stand out as a major influence of our time.
An Artist Critics Love and Hate
A room full of windsurf boards, each sliced into equal segments like morsels of cheese; a white board laid down like a table with three pairs of pants splayed out atop its surface; a human-sized canvas painted all white except for a single scribbled line: these are some of the many works for which Michael Krebber has become known. They occupy extreme ends of his oeuvre, and are part of the reason Krebber is derided, and sometimes despised, by critics. Examples like these are what led Jerry Saltz to call recent works by Krebber “mundane, lazy,” and “vapid variants of…look-alike Crapstraction.” But the same works are what inspired Moritz Scheper, writing in Artforum, to say Krebber has a posture “of refusal that renders him an almost Bartleby-esque figure at times,” invoking the legendary, stubborn genius of the Hermann Melville character Bartleby the Scrivener.
Michael Krebber - Untitled, 1994 Acrylic on canvas, 24 × 18 1/10 in, 61 × 46 cm (Left) and Untitled, 1995, Emulsion paint on canvas, 19 9/10 × 16 7/10 in, 50.5 × 42.5 cm, © Michael Krebber, Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin / Cologne
Objectively speaking, Krebber does not only make simplistic, sparse works. He has also made ambitious abstract and figurative paintings, complex multi-media collages and sculptures, miniscule works on paper, and anxiety inducing installations. Like most artists, he is complex and represents a combination of idiosyncratic vision and the influence of his heroes. Those heroes are another reason why he tends to either get villainized or praised in the press. Born in 1954, Krebber studied painting at the State Academy of Fine Art Karlsruhe, and later became a professor at the State University of Fine Arts, Frankfurt, Germany. But in between, he worked as an assistant in the studios of two of the most influential German painters of the past half century: George Baselitz (b. 1938), who continues to enjoy worldwide prominence for his brutish, quasi-abstract paintings; and Martin Kippenberger (1953-1997), whose vibrant, brash, multi-disciplined oeuvre was as publicized in his lifetime as was his immodest public persona.
Michael Krebber - DEP-MK-0016, 2015, Lacquer on canvas, 63 × 47 1/5 in, 160 × 120 cm (Left) and MK/M 2015/08, 2015 Acrylic paint on canvas, 41 3/10 × 31 1/2 in, 105 × 80 cm (Right), © Michael Krebber, Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin / Cologne
What Painting Can Be
Why, though, should Krebber (or anyone) be judged according to their influences? As Bloomberg points out, Krebber has created a large enough oeuvre that a catalogue raisonné is currently being compiled. He has work in the permanent collection of MoMA. His paintings have been exhibited in major museums on several continents, and on the walls of five of the most prestigious art dealerships in the US and Europe. It is time to judge this artist on his own accomplishments. And in addition to the art he has created, those accomplishments include the legacy of freedom and openness he has established for the generations of artists yet to come. That is what most critics fail to recognize when they look at a Krebber painting today, and it is the same thing critics failed to recognize when Lucio Fontana first slashed the surface of a canvas, when Kazimir Malevich painted his first black square, when Marcel Duchamp first stuck a wheel in a stool, when Eva Hesse first hung coils of rope from the wall, or when Agnes Martin painted her first grid—artists enjoy exploring what art can be.
Michael Krebber - Untitled, Acrylic and chalk on canvas, © Michael Krebber, Courtesy: Christie's, New York
It is no more complicated than that sometimes—art is a fun and engaging problem to work on. Krebber is just figuring it out. We do not have to like what he does, but we should at least understand it for what it its: experimental personal expression. Perhaps it is hyperbolic to place Krebber in the category of a Melville anti-hero, but to haters like Jerry Saltz I say that to make something is never lazy, and to make something new is never mundane. The reasons why the Krebber market is picking up are unknown to me—they are better discussed in publications like Bloomberg. But the reason the Krebber market has been slow in the past is something I can address. It is because the work he makes does not look like what a lot of people, including the critics, want art to look like. But that is also why the next generation is excited about it—because it shows them it is up to painters and no one else to decide what painting can be.
Michael Krebber - Untitled, 2004 Lacquer, spraypaint, newspaper, tape on canvas, 37 2/5 × 31 1/2 in, 95 × 80 cm, © Michael Krebber, Courtesy: Galerie Nagel Draxler (Left) and Untitled, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 39 2/5 × 29 1/2 in, 100 × 75 cm (Right), © Michael Krebber, Courtesy: dépendance, Brussels
Featured image: Michael Krebber - MK/M 2014/01, 2014, Acrylic on canvas, 47 1/5 × 63 in, 120 × 160 cm, © Michael Krebber, Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin / Cologne
All images used for illustrative purposes only
By Phillip Barcio
