KAREL APPEL

On 8 November 1948, two Belgian poets, alongside one Danish and threeDutch painters, gathered in the Café de l’Hôtel Notre-Dame in Paris. Here,they founded an avant-garde movement that soon would be given the nameCoBrA, a compilation of the initials of Copenhagen, Brussels andAmsterdam, the capital cities from which the founders originated. WhileParis was still considered the world’s art capital, ‘Pa’ was conspicuouslyabsent from the name.

Last year, several institutional exhibitions commemorated the 75th birthdayof CoBrA’s inception, which might be taken as a proof of the movement’slasting impact. However, just three years after its foundation, CoBrA wasdisbanded and virtually forgotten for the rest of the 1950s. Its rediscoverybegan in the 1960s, encouraged by its key figure, the Belgian poetChristian Dotremont, as well as by some galleries and collectors whospecialised in the movement. The name’s labelling efficiency may haveplayed a role in this astonishing success.

Karel Appel, born in Amsterdam, was one of the six CoBrA founders. Yet,he was the only one to succeed in his international breakthrough quite soonafter the group’s dissolution. In 1954, he had his first exhibition in New York,the upcoming new art capital, and from 1957 onwards, he shared his timebetween Paris and New York. Then, he was perceived as an artist of theNouvelle École de Paris, rather than a member of CoBrA.

By the time the world’s art capital had shifted from Paris to New York,around the mid-1960s, the medium of painting had become consideredoutdated. Appel, always in search of new inspiration during his long career,reacted by incorporating elements of the sleek Pop style with typical CoBrAthemes, which he had all but abandoned in the interim. This combinationwas very successful and, despite lasting no longer than a decade, itcrystallised his exclusive association with CoBrA in the general perception.

In the midst of 2023, the CoBrA anniversary year, Galerie Max Hetzlerpublished a catalogue compiling the four Karel Appel exhibitions that thegallery has shown so far in its London and Berlin spaces, yet the artist’sCoBrA work was deliberately left out from this publication. There is muchmore to tell about a practice spanning over 6 decades than simply the threeyears of Appel’s involvement with CoBrA. A common aim of the fourexhibitions, each of which proposed a different approach, was to counterthe notorious tendency to reduce his oeuvre to the CoBrA years.

The present exhibition sets out to diversify this reductionist image. In arather didactical setup, it separates the CoBrA years from Appel’ssubsequent production. In the street facing galleries, the first room isdedicated to works from just before and just after CoBrA, marking theborders as it were. The selection in the connecting two rooms has beenmade in view of offering a brief apreçu of the diversity of themes and stylesfrom before and after the transitory death of painting. In gallery two, worksfrom the original CoBrA period are juxtaposed with examples of the re-emergence of its themes in a Pop-inspired style. Exploring both the earlyinfluences as a member of an avant-garde group and the later thematic andstylistic shifts within Appel’s extensive body of work, _CoBrA | Non-CoBrA_thus considers the enduring legacy of an artist who tirelessly straddledcontinents, styles and mediums.

Franz W. Kaiser

Press release courtesy Galerie Max Hetzler. Text: Franz W. Kaiser.