Collection: Martin Kippenberger

Martin Kippenberger (1953–1997) was a German artist whose practice encompassed painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, music, publishing, and performance. Prolific, self-mythologising, and resistant to categorisation, he produced an oeuvre that exhausted virtually all categories of artistic activity in less than three decades.

Kippenberger's books and printed matter sit close to his broader practice: provisional, funny, and structurally close to the artist's book format. His aphorisms, posters, catalogues, and publications were not supplementary to his art but continuous with it — printed supports for tone, persona, and method. His work was shown twice at the Venice Biennale, posthumously in the German Pavilion in 2003, and has since been the subject of major retrospectives at Tate Modern, London (2006), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2008), and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2009).

Publications gathered here include artist's books, exhibition catalogues, and printed matter documenting Kippenberger's practice. Original and period items.