Fifty Painting By Peter Baer, 1988-1989
When someone-particularly an artist- goes all out , no holds barred, always starting afresh, moving forward down the same path, we are aware of it because, seeing the struggle, the contest, picture after picture, we ask ourselves the fundamental question: what can be the driving force behind it, the inexhaustible motivation, what goals, ever more ambitious, animate these pictorial assaults, this craving for artistic intensity in the individual painting, and then immediately go one step beyond? After all, the result could be strangulation, deadlock, apparently, though the extent to which it remains genuinely expansive, an enrichment of the substance, must be taken unrelentingly to extremes by Peter Baer, and said in spite of all the risks of “going out too far“- as in Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea“ , much loved by Baer (cf. Georg Germann in the catalogue „ Peter Baer“, Galerie „zem Specht“ and Kunsthalle, Basle 1938/84,p.9).
The paintings Peter Baer has produced since June 1988 (mainly in the formats of 130×150cm or 120×110cm) form- with particular rigour - a sequence (in view of their openness, I refrain from saying “cycle“); more precisely, they format least two connected, concurrent sequences. Baer differentiates between the “Trägerköpfe“ („Platform Heads“, Fig.20 ff) from an earlier series “Bühnen“ (“Stages“). The latter originated in the picture „Der Täuscher“ („The Deceiver“, Fig.1). It was painted in June 1988 and later slightly changed. It differs from all the other, more plastic, pictures in its shadow-dynamic character and-though the basic motifs of the paintings to come are hinted at-objectively in a diffuseness which leaves all that is separate and physical barely graspable, slipping beyond reach. The dominant diagonal does not simply lie crosswise, but rather introduces rotation into the picture and its „objects“, as though, in spite of fierce resistance, everything wanted to extricate itself.
Precisely in relation to this first picture, which is not entitled „Der Täuscher“ for nothing ( a challenging gesture: what else does this deceptive painting have in mind?), one sees that the following 49 paintings are united by their energetically affirmative nature and by the establishment of a vis-à-vis of enhanced concreteness, going much further in this than anything previous in Baer’s oeuvre. The brushstrokes, even where the colours are brilliant, are more and more emphatically plastic. Their“ graphic“ flow can be illusionary effects recede. This is particularly true for those pictures whose concreteness is taken almost to the point of barbarism, without the ( head) centre being lost; extreme examples are“ Philosoph“ („Philosopher“),“Fürst” („Count“) and „Jude“(„Jew“) (Figs.28, 30, 31),and in more audacious form “Admiral“ or “Africaner“ (“African“) (Figs. 44 and 46).
Number1 of the first series, entitled “Bühnen“ („Stages“: both of the ego and the “world“, simultaneously and individually inner spaces and extremely tense outer spaces), is according to its basic motif-one of those Torero pictures (at least outwardly), whose core idea is more precisely described by Baer’s circumscription “Mass nehmen“ („measure taking“). This leitmotif (see also cover) is not lost in the second series, the “Trägerköpfe“ (Platform Heads“) („Stierkämpfer-Bullfighter“, Fig. 41; and the accompanying figures of the “Knecht“ („Servant“ or “knight’s page“), Fig. 22, and the „Rebell“, Fig. 26). Needless to say, the “ Platform Heads“ have something of the self-portrait about them-right through to “Priester“ („Priest“, Fig. 21) and finally “Weltreiniger“ („World Cleanser“, Fig. 50, whose tense, twitching face appears to draw together towards the very point where the crucial opening and expansive, liberating movement can be experienced. He title“ World Cleanser“, and of course the ambiguous lavatorial form of the skull, recalls Aurel Schmidt’s essay on Peter Baer ( in the above-mentioned exhibition catalogue, 1983/84, p.13: “At the starting point in his work, there are purification compulsions and notions of redemption. The situation once became critical for him when he left the toilet flushing for a long time. At that time the world seemed a shitty place and I felt the need to cleanse myself.'“ The final picture in the second series-the “Platform Head“ pictures-has a remarkable precursor in the first series. “Sieben + eins“ („Seven + one“ ,Fig.17). Its apocalyptic character-apocalyptic in the sense that wondrous, perhaps final, things are portrayed with visionary portents - is also seen, in related form, in “Der Mann über dem Netz“ („The Man over the Net“, Fig.4) and “Jericho“ (Fig.5): a head bent forward, looking inward, it becomes The “platform „ for an entire happening, dimensions open up, there is a roaring noise, intrusions occur. The old-testament trumpets of Jericho brought the walls of the city down- in the work entitled “Jericho“ (Fig.5), it is certainly not intended that one should seek representations of such trumpets (least of all in the number seven which appears more than once in Baer’s paintings - Fig.17, for instance, but also in earlier work). Nevertheless in this „coming over himself“, in the „taking measure“ and “being taken measure of“, in the growing and discharging, something is expressed that is not far removed from the linguistic picture of the Bible.“ I consider the written word to be important, the word, of which it is said that it is becomes flesh“, answers Peter Baer without hesitation if asked. In many paintings, the scroll, the Torah, weighs on the head (Fig.14, 29, 34, 36, 38, 40, 41, 43); the scroll encloses the head so that it dwindles into an “other-worldly“ red, and the two elements, head and scroll, fuse (Fig.29); or else the Torah - which appears in earlier works by for example in several of the series of drawings “Ferienrapport“ („Holiday Report“- Basle, Birkhäuser Verlag, 1987, Fig.37 ff, 50 ff, 80 ff),like an energy-charged object such as a bullfighter’s cape or a balancing pole-is raised above the head or even above a “world-stage table“ born on the head (Fig.7); and finally, Baer named one of the “platform heads“, which is surmounted by a bare table (compellingly dark and opening up at the same time), “Gesetzesträger“ („Law Bearer“, Fig.33). Table(stage), chair bed, perch (Figs. 15-16), obelisk - or coffin-shaped “Berg“(„Mountain“) in crystalline, crowning form (Figs.20ff; cf. “Ferienrapport“ Figs.30 ff, by drawing seen in Fig.50 it resembles a coffin), book, Torah: all these interlink to form a coherent series of structures, burdening and crowning the heads, in a concentration process. They are oppressed and humiliated, but at the same time exalted, and this not without allusion to the prophets and martyrs of the “Scriptures“. “One must associate oneself with biblical characters“, says Baer.
Painting as a medial process of realization can be understood as a model for the non-existence of coincidence, as a model for the necessity of realization from a certain attitude and viewpoint, which as a vision can-in principle-approach the prophecies of old. Then the “I“ becomes an instrument-the ancient yearning and “vocation“ of the artist and their historical relatives(I ascertain this fact soberly, without heroizing the artistic profession, which is so important to me). Painting is a matter of anticipation and letting-oneself-be-guided through the non-coincidental; it is not a question of a banal demonstration of some pretension to “owning the truth“ (which, according to Lessing, only renders one “calm, idle and proud“). When Peter Baer comments: “It happens as it must, not as it wants“, one can take it as referring
To the application of the colour on the canvas, but also course to further-reaching, related processes. Clearly, for Baer, this is the crux of the motivation to paint. It is from this point of view that the quality of these pictures must ultimately be judged.
Dieter Koepplin