Thomas Bayrle

The German painter, printmaker and object artist Thomas Bayrle was born in Berlin in 1937. After training as a weaver in Göppingen he studied at the Werkkunstschule, an arts and crafts institute, in Offenbach. He first focused on literature and fine-art reproduction techniques, and was a co-founder of the Gulliver Presse, which produces artists’ books and editions. The serial principle is a major element of his art. In the 1960s he developed an idiosyncratic pictorial form with the help of a structural grid, creating large pictures out of many identical elements. He works with neo-Dadaist and Pop Art stylistic methods. His political works take aim at capitalist society and the loss of individuality in mass culture, employing the “superform”, the mass ornament familiar from political propaganda. In the 1960s he created motorised picture boxes. In his graphic work he employs duplicated pictograms, and he is also active as a video artist. Bayrle taught at the Städelschule from 1972 to 2002. In 1964 and 1977 he participated in documenta 3 and 7. He lives and works in Frankfurt am Main.