K.H. Hödicke
U-Bahn, 1964
Information about the artwork
- Translated titleUnderground
- MaterialGraphite, charcoal, emulsion paint on canvas
- Dimensions90.8 x 2 cm
- Year of acquisition2020
- Inventory numberUAB 1266
- On viewCurrently not exhibited
- Copyright© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn [2021]
More about the artwork
The picture, painted in Berlin in 1964, is one of Hödicke’s key works. After his early abstract work it marks the “desperate attempt to become representational”. Impressions of urban hustle and bustle, which Hödicke collected on his strolls near Kurfürstendamm, crowd in on the centrally positioned blue-and-white subway sign. We see the door of a passing subway car, sections of store signs (“Automaten-Buffet”) and barriers. As if he wanted to underscore, also materially, the industrialization of the everyday world, Hödicke pasted shiny strips of aluminum foil into the picture. The mixture of drawing, painting and assemblage thus blends into an “action collage” of Berlin’s big-city life between fascination and alienation.
