Wilder Westen, 1984

About the Work

Peter Angermann’s work teems irony and issues a provocation through its caricatured depiction of yawning

cowboys. With utter indifference, they ignore the mushroom cloud in the background which has resulted from an atomic explosion. This points towards the countless tests of atomic weapons conducted by the American military in the Nevada desert beginning in the 1950s. As a member of the artists’ group YIUP, Angermann parodied the actions of his teacher Joseph Beuys at the Düsseldorf Art Academy; he felt that Beuys’ Fettecke no longer fulfilled the programmatic agenda of avant-garde artists, and he accordingly turned to figurative painting.