Untitled (Kopf Mit Hut) 1963

Konrad Lueg made this painting, "Untitled (Kopf Mit Hut)," with stark black and white paint. He has been slapping down paint to make a kind of face with a hat. Looking at this, I feel like Lueg was trying to see how little he could do to evoke an image. Did he start with the black background, and then carefully paint the white hat and face shape on top? Did he go back and forth, maybe struggling to get the proportions right? The white paint is thick and gloppy, especially in the hat. You can almost see the brushstrokes, feel the artist’s hand moving across the canvas. The thin vertical opening in the center of the face is super creepy. What's that about? It's like a window into nothingness. It reminds me a bit of Francis Picabia's mechanistic drawings, but with a raw, almost punk energy. I wonder if the artist's were in conversation. Anyway, here's another artist laying down a challenge for us to see the world anew through his painting.