Günther Förg
Newport Harbor Art Museum
“The successful work . . . ,” wrote Theodor Adorno, “is not one which resolves objective contradiction in a spurious harmony, but one which expresses the idea of harmony negatively by embodying the contradictions, pure and uncompromised, in its innermost structure.” This concept of a dialectical totality whose constituent parts are perpetually autonomous is an apt theoretical model for Günther Förg’s project. Using interdependent series of paintings, sculptures, and photographs, Förg creates large-scale environments in which conventional hierarchies of object and space, support and surface,