Pompa Rant

Norbert Bisky’s POMPA / RANT, published by Walther and Franz König, is a double catalogue of the artist’s exhibitions that took place in 2019/2020 at Villa Schöningen, Potsdam, and St. Matthew Church in Berlin. While the RANT exhibition in Potsdam focused on the events surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall, POMPA, with an elaborate ceiling installation in the church, focused on the decades following the fall of the Wall.

Norbert Bisky’s work has addressed the history of East and West Germany since 1989, touching specifically on the tension between idealistic hopes and disillusionment. In an explosively colourful aesthetic, well-known motifs, events and poses are collaged and decontextualised. Bisky’s paintings appear at ease with historical and contemporary reality bringing criticism, humour and pure painterly vitality together in an inherently political practice.