About the Work
The ‘Black Panels’ depict and signify nothing more than the thirty-five small panels of which they each consist. They render visible the narrow ridge along which the concept of ‘painting’ has travelled since the early twentieth century. Peter Roehr’s work is indebted to an idea as simple as it is ingenious. It lines up identical found objects, unchanged, one beside the other; the artist never comes to the fore. He avails himself of a concept limited to the acts of selecting and entitling. This renunciation of meaning and personal style makes him one of the pioneers of the post-war vanguard.
About the Acquisition
Gallery owner Paul Maenz met Peter Roehr in the early 1960s at the Frankfurt advertising agency Young & Rubicam. In January 1968 they opened a head shop together which – according to its owners – sold “psychodelicacies with hippie paraphernalia”. Roehr, who had cancer, appointed Maenz to administer his estate. The acquisition of the ‘Black Boards’ represents one of the Museums-Verein’s most prominent contemporary art purchases and was made possible by the Marga und Kurt Möllgaard-Stiftung founded in 1987.
