Shadowless

SHADOWLESS
Works by:
Thomas Struth and
Jörg Immendorff
Feb. 25 through April 22, 2025

Leo Koenig Inc. is delighted to present Shadowless with works by Thomas Struth and Jorg Imendorff. Thomas Struth’s black and white photographs of cities emptied of inhabitants strike at the heart of the human condition. Photographed in the early morning, on cloudy days, the streets are devoid of sun and therefore, shadow. Iwona Blazwick, Director, Whitechapel Gallery wrote in 2017 “His streets rarely have people in them, he was very aware of the kind of silence that reigned not just in the streets but across a whole generation that had been traumatized by the war and wasn’t talking about it.” Looking at the stark images, one’s mind begins to timorously question the reason for the void, the impetus of that absence. You don’t want to go there, but the structures remain persistent

In contrast, Jorg Immendorff’s paintings permeate the canvas with lush, teeming visages from fever dreams, colorfully populated with friends, heralding with the viewer with the theatrical, political , natural and heartfelt. There is a through line from the conscious to unconscious, without delineation or demarcation. Known for his symbolic imagery that took cues from New Objectivity Artists such as Georg Grosz Max Beckman and Otto Dix and his work differed markedly from the more abstract styles of his peers Markus Lupertz and A.R. Penck. For Immendorff this meant speaking directly from the core, whether it meant incorporating symbolism or including the likenesses of friends in his work. He is quoted as saying “Something is beautiful if it is honest,” and further “If you do an engaged piece of work, which is sincere, the concept of beauty meets the concept of truth.” And that truth seldom exists in shadows.

Thomas Struth was recognized early in his career due to his association with the Düsseldorf School of Photography, which was led by acclaimed photography duo Bernd and Hilla Becher. An acute level of detail, and oversized proportions characterize Struth’s work, as does his ability to capture a wide range of subject matter, from urban scenes to expanses of nature, with the same prosaic yet complex approach.

Struth was born in 1954 in Geldern, West Germany, and studied at the nearby Kunstakademie Düsseldorf between 1973 and 1980, where some of his instructors included the famed abstract painter Gerhard Richter as well as the Bechers. The work and practice of these two seemingly disparate teachers both greatly influenced the burgeoning photographer in the late 1970s, he was awarded the school’s first travel scholarship to New York, where he produced black and white, somewhat deadpan cityscape photographs. In 1978, the first solo show of his work was shown at P.S.1, Institute for Art and Urban Resources, (which is known today as MoMA PS1).

 He has been the subject of numerous retrospectives worldwide, including at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1994), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2003 and 2014), the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (2007) and the Haus de Kunst, Munich (2018), among others. He continues to live and work in Düsseldorf today.

 Jörg Immendorff was a German painter known for his color soaked figurative style and use of symbolic imagery. Born on June 14, 1945 in Bleckede, Germany, Immendorff studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under artist Joseph Beuys. Immendorff’s popular painting series Café Deutschland from the 1970s, combined autobiography with social and political commentary. Immendorff’s first exhibition in the United States was held in 1982 at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and he died May 28, 2007 in Düsseldorf, Germany at the age of 61 from complications due to ALS. Today, the artist’s works are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art in Bremen, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.

The Gallery is open by appointment. Please call us at 212.334.7866 OR email us at info@leokoenig.com to arrange an appointment.