Ludorff gallery is pleased to present a selection of six works by key post-war artists that have shaped the landscape of painting since 1945 until today: Josef Albers, Sam Francis, Heinz Mack, Bram Bogart, Imi Knoebel and Gerhard Richter have been and are essential innovators in an era who have challenged and pushed the limitations of painting. Their work is deeply rooted in the history of art and refers to the work of artists like Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich, who had already defined endpoints of a potential development within the abstract world. Nevertheless the artists mentioned have overcome this point by incorporating new techniques, by opening up painting to the third dimension and by stimulating our minds with important intellectual concepts that have never been thought of before.

For Bram Bogart, color as physical matter and the material possibilities of the medium were the focus of his work. The mass of paint functioned as an indicator of physical activity, which was pushed, drawn or dragged across the canvas. Thus, starting from his early figurative painting, through abstract cubistic-geometric and gestural works, he developed his key period, in which he brought more and more colored paint material onto the canvas. His works exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1970 are impressive examples of this. He visually softened the edges of these sculptural paintings or gave them a broad outline, the material of which often protruded beyond the boundary between the picture and its surroundings, emphasizing it and showing its importance for the artist. Through this demarcation, the work also becomes a refuge where the viewer can enjoy a sense of calm. In addition, the color fields and accumulations convey an idea of "building" with color and illustrating a seamless cohesion of color, gesture and structure.

The U.S. American painter Sam Francis is one of the most important representatives of Abstract Expressionism following a second generation of artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko or Willem de Kooning. His frequent travels between New York, California, Europe - especially Paris -, Mexico, and Japan made their mark on his oeuvre, freeing him at the same time to be perceived as a strictly American artist. Influenced by European Art Informel and Zen Buddhism, Francis developed an oevure that sought to unite the idea of emptiness with the presence of a painterly presence. In this way Francis combines influences from caligraphy, colour field painting and action painting in his works, where pure colours meet unpainted surfaces and increase each other's effect.

Light gives the room its sensuality, its atmosphere, its transparency. (H. M., 1961)

In 1957 Heinz Mack and Otto Piene founded the ZERO movement, which aims to mark a zero point and a new beginning in art. 1961 Günther Uecker joins the movement. The traditional understanding of art was to be overcome. Mack experimented with light and movement, partly directly in untouched nature. He understands "colour as light and light as colour". His non-objective sculptures, works on paper and paintings follow the same principle: since 1991, "Chromatic Constellations" have been created from pure color, visualizing the oscillations and dynamics between individual color levels. The delineated forms create a rhythm in the works. His sculptures and reliefs are also characterized by the powerful combination of light and movement. Mack himself describes drawings as "grammar of my art" and "language of his hand".