Bernard Schultze was a leading representative of gestural-abstract painting in Europe. His participation in the Quadriga exhibition in Frankfurt in 1952 together with Karl Otto Götz, Otto Greis, and Heinz Kreutz marked the birth of Informel in Germany.
From 1961 on, Schultze occupied himself with the creation of his Migofs for more than half a century. They appear in his paintings and are rendered as sculptures in papier-mâché and bronze. ‘Migof’ is an invented word and, because of its onomatopoeic qualities, is supposed to evoke associations that may differ for each viewer. The large-scale sculptures began to appear in 1992. The Kraken-Migof Sculpture is one of these creatures. It was produced in 1992 in cooperation with the Schmäke foundry in Düsseldorf and now inhabits the south balcony of the museum.
Acquisition: Reinhard Ernst Collection, Lempertz, 2009
Group exhibition:
1997–1999
Permanent loan of the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg
Bernard Schultze was a leading representative of gestural-abstract painting in Europe. His participation in the Quadriga exhibition in Frankfurt in 1952 together with Karl Otto Götz, Otto Greis, and Heinz Kreutz marked the birth of Informel in Germany. Together with these three artists, he first encountered original works by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell in Paris where he also met Jean-Paul Riopelle. His first informal paintings were influenced by André Breton’s thesis of creative work under the dictates of the unconscious: out of the unconscious arose a first artistic impulse, whereupon Schultze let himself drift as long as possible to ‘where the picture wants to go,’ [1] as he once wrote. With this process, the artist’s controlling hand takes over sometimes sooner, sometimes later. This helped him develop his own pictorial language and established him as a unique figure in drawing and painting.
The creation of his Migofs began in 1961 and would occupy him for the next 50 years. They are fantastically proliferating, vaguely gestalt-like colour formations which animate his abstract-expressive, yet highly associative works. They appear in his paintings and are rendered as sculptures in papier-mâché and bronze.
Schultze understands the word ‘Migof’ as ‘an approximate naming of these entities that stand between the other creatures, between animal, plant, human’ [2]. It is an invented word and, because of its onomatopoeic qualities, is supposed to evoke associations that may differ for each viewer. In the meantime, the word has established itself in his work as a generic term that encompasses drawings, paintings, and objects. The large-scale sculptures began to appear in 1992. The Kraken-Migof Sculpture is one of these creatures. It was produced in 1992 in cooperation with the Schmäke foundry in Düsseldorf and now inhabits the south balcony of the museum.
[1] Cited in Thomas Kliemann, ‘”Wohin das Bild will” Kölner Museum Ludwig honors painter Bernard Schultze,’ in: General-Anzeiger, Bonn 2015, online edition: https://ga.de/news/kultur-und-medien/regional/wohin-das-bild-will_aid-42377007
[2] Cited in Alexander Streitberger, ‘Bernard Schultze,’ in: Brennpunkt Informel: Quellen, Strömungen, Reaktionen, ed. by Christoph Zuschlag, ex.cat. Kurpfälzisches Museum der Stadt Heidelberg, Cologne 1998, p. 110.
