About the Work
With his fist clenched, this man is indicating the way to ‘real’ art. The message is: Art must be of use to the people. With ‘To Whom?’ Jörg Immendorff, who joined the Maoist-influenced KPD/ML in 1973, was practising a Western version of agitprop. While he phrases an unambiguous thesis, the antithesis emerges almost imperceptibly – namely Joseph Beuys’ ‘social sculpture’, an extended idea of art with which Beuys intended to alter society. Initially, Immendorff eagerly adopted this notion; here, however, it seems exaggerated, utopian and ultimately hopeless.