Tango until it hurts

Painting, Oil on Wood (door leaf), 1988. Like no other painter Klaus Killisch stands for a young generation of artists in East Germany in the 1980ies. His highly expressive paintings are motivated and based on a transdisciplinary approach as well as they are signified by its art historical connotations. protest and rebellion full of relish against any forms of rigide social, political and esthetical conventions were the result. In particular the series "Tango bis es weh tut" whose titel refers to the Tom Waits song "They tango till they're sore", embodies the coequal equivalent to paintings having been produced at the same time in the West by painters firming under the name „Junge Wilde“ (the young wild ones). On both sides oft he Berlin Wall paintings oft hat time are marked by a sensual quality, almost lustful presentation of cultural end time scenarios situated in urban contexts. Referring to early 20ies Century avantgardes the visual language ocillates between politically and culturally based melancholic huffiness and hedonistic dawn.