Der Menschen Klee. An exhibition of paintings from London and Düsseldorf

Featuring works by Anna Barriball, Eva Berendes, Brian Chalkley, Declan Clarke, Richard Clegg, Sophie von Hellermann, Paul McDevitt, Tim Stoner, Neal Tait, Markus Vater, Martin Westwood, curated by Gertrud Peters and Cornelius Quabeck

In 1976 while his own exhibition Pop Art in England was enjoying great success in Europe and the US, painter Ron Kitaj curated a show at the Royal Academy in London. Entitled The Human Clay, it focused on figurative painting, which was rather unpopular at the time. In the catalogue that accompanied the exhibition, Kitaj coined the term “School of London” to describe a group of artists he believed reflected the diversity and vibrancy of art being created in England at the time.

The work of these artists, who included Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Leon Kossoff, had a defining influence on a younger generation of painters in London.
The artists whose paintings feature in KIT’s exhibition Der Menschen Klee were also chosen by by one of their peers. Cornelius Quabeck studied under Jörg Immendorff and Albert Oehlen at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf before moving to Chelsea College in London, where he graduated with an MA in Fine Art in 2002. All the artists participating in the exhibition are former fellow students, teachers or others with whom Quabeck has collaborated. Its title is a German take on The Human Clay, which is itself a quote from a poem by W.H. Auden. The show explores the differences in the way art is taught in London and at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.

A symposium with English and German artists and lecturers will also take place in conjunction with the exhibition.