Neo-Expressionism

新表現主義 / 1978–1990 / Style / Postwar Abstract Painting

An international current in which large formats, violent brushwork and subjects from history and myth returned, in reaction against the asceticism of Minimal and Conceptual art. Its raw draughtsmanship and layers of grime feed directly into the temperature of 1980s record sleeves and magazine layouts.

Neo-Expressionism — Georg Baselitz, BDM Gruppe, 2012 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Wamito — Georg Baselitz, BDM Gruppe, 2012 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Wamito

Neo-Expressionism — Georg Baselitz《Volk Ding Zero》2009 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 · © OTFW , Berlin — Georg Baselitz《Volk Ding Zero》2009 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · © OTFW , Berlin

Neo-Expressionism — Jörg Immendorff《Affentor I》— Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Ulli 2mecs — Jörg Immendorff《Affentor I》— Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Ulli 2mecs

At a glance

Visual cues

Large formats and coarse brushwork
Subjects from myth and history
Heavy use of muddied colour and black
Mixed-in materials and physical thickness

Best used for

Record sleeves and gig posters that need heat, mess and myth
Fashion and editorial imagery trading polish for raw painterly attack

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Dictionary entry

Type: Scrawled, hand-painted headlines; letterforms attacked rather than set
Composition: Oversized central figures crowding the frame; layers colliding without hierarchy
Material: Muddied colour, black, and matter mixed into the paint—straw, sand, collage
Caution: Avoid controlled, tasteful roughness—the style demands real excess, and a tidied version reads as a costume of rebellion.
Further study: The differences between the German, Italian and American strands / The relationship with the art market / The spread into 1980s graphics

Related entries

Expressionism (表現主義)Shared effects: Rebellion / Exhilaration.Compare Neo-Expressionism and Expressionism
Lowbrow (Pop Surrealism) (ローブロウ)Shared effects: Rebellion / Nostalgia.Compare Neo-Expressionism and Lowbrow (Pop Surrealism)

Often confused with

Expressionism (表現主義)compare

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