MARTIN KIPPENBERGER and other matters

by Paul

Henrickson, Ph.D. tm. © 2009

There are times, and this may be one of them, when it is very difficult to distinguish between the
value of the reasonable and that of the outlandish. With credit to the London based art gallery
Saatchi Gallery for the virulent lesson provided by the apotheosis of rot…there is, after all, great
value for new growth in the rotten.
In this instance we might consider gratitude for the Saatchi time keepers for their having
provided the shit. There are times, after all, when those most intimately involved, are unable to
diagnose their own ailments and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone, somewhere along the
line, drew a connection between the innovative, sarcastic and unlimitedly iconoclastic behavior
of these brothers, or, of at least Charles Saatchi. It is all rather too bad since he appears to have a
rather quirky sense of humor and might be entertaining as a companion.
What it all seems to come down to is this: if one sees evidence of degradation is it, in principle,
the proper thingto call its character to the attention of those responsible so that the matter might
be corrected?
My answer to that would be “yes”, that is the right and the proper thing to do, BUT it is also the
best and quickest and most certain way to professional suicide…for, as a rule, administrators, or
those who think themselves such, do not like to be instructed by those beneath them on the
ladder of prestige. I could provide the reader with many names of such would be professional
dignitaries….and they sure do know how to play the role.
The shocking thing about that scenario is that most of the rest of the world which goes to make
up the democratic mind-view of academia and other expressions of high culture are truly an
ignorant lot…or, perhaps, sometimes occultly knowledgeable but malicious in addition…which
could put Charles Saatchi in bed with Nicole Davis since I believe I detect some
mischievousness in Saatchi’s motives.
Now, the other side of that coin is that if the administrator is one who
expects his team members to behave professionally and treats them in that
fashion and allows them the freedom to behave professionally and to pursue
their academic and creative interests the likelihood is that these mean-
spirited functionaries will maneuver the head-man out of the situation all
together, as, indeed, did happen to the brothers.
Perhaps this is how it was managed with the Saatchi brothers, those whom they
expected to behave properly, misused the opportunity and screwed them and the
brothers were shown the door, however, the brothers were creative enough to
come back stronger than what they had been before. My basic lament is that their
views on creative art expressions seem to be far different from mine.

While they seem intent upon holding up as virtuous the back-sides of creative
expression such as most of the work of the heroes of the Saatchi Gallery: Hirst,
Emin, Koons, Warhole, Kiefer and Gerhard Richter reveal…. While vague evidences
of creative intelligence appear to be in some of these works, it is so ONLY if one
looks at them as witty comments on societal values but not if one looks at them as
works of art . That distinction, however, would require no little amount of
intellectual gymnastics and some fine tuning of aesthetic perception and very
choice language.

I find it, to a small degree, somewhat arrogant that Pope Benedict found Kippenberger’s frog on a cross
to be blasphemous. Although I haven’t had it confirmed that the Pope actually expressed a thought about
it at all. It may simply have been an extension of the rather infantile humor that pervaded its creation in
the first place,

EXCEPT that it would seem not merely possible, but likely, that this frog, and frogs are nearly always
victims, is a form of Kippenberger’s self. It would, I think, have been more logical for those concerned with
cruelty toward animals to have expressed outrage, yet, I haven’t heard that they have done so. The cross
is not the exclusive symbol of Christian churches in any event.

Well, where is it said that the proper response to be had of an image of a dead man on a cross is one
ofadmiration? We, that is, some, do admire it now, but originally, it was an image of horror. It was
intended to be a horrible and frightening image, and in the early years of Christianity it wasn’t used at all
for that very reason because it was an image that would inject terror, compassion, guilt and fear into the
hearts of a believing populous or prospective convert. Believing, that is, however tangentially, in the
inevitable source of the power of the state, theocratic or not, to control the people …through fear.

Perhaps, after all, it might be Anselm Kiefer whose inclusion of unconventional materials, such as field
straw, tar, loads of varnish in combination with a few more usual items –in some cases providing a nice
house for a mouse- made the point that our habitual social assignments needed redefinition. Such
materials would have found no choice aesthetic display in a Renaissance household.

Even today, in all practical areas Kiefer’s work does not fit well into today’s most available human
shelters. Most private individuals, even if they could afford the price, probably would not have the wall
space required and public spaces, most of which are supported by wealthy corporate interests, might
exhibit them as a form of public entertainment as one means of forestalling more serious revolutionary
responses…all of which might seem to .logically add up to the conclusion that the system, as we know it
today, is ill and it knows it is ill and is in psychic conflict as to what to do with itself…hence the celebration
of the alcoholic Kippenberger who died of liver cancer at 43…Kippinberger shows us the way out.

It, his death, was, of course, a fact, a convenient fact, elaborating on the theme of time consuming slow-
motion suicide, providing even greater profit for the merchants of disorder, disease and degradation.
Enjoy the trip on the way down!.

Ul'n Spegel may be an appropriate expression after all, which I have learnt in
Plattdeutch refers to not having used toilet paper. The owl and the mirror in the
traditional Hochdeutch Till may refer to a need to be wise and to take a good look at
yourself and what you do where as the low German bluntly advises one to wipe
one’s arse.
Seen in this fashion it may be possible to conclude that Duchamp may have been
right, at least for himself at that time, when he gave up art for chess. I do not
happen to think so, however, I simply think he had missed seeing other alternatives
such as may have been pushing their way into consciousness with Albert Pinkham
Ryder, Paul Cezanne and perhaps even Sam Francis who, when I was 21 and in
Paris, was described by a gallery director who was herself very serious when she
told me that Francis was the one American artist most appreciated in Paris. I made
no comment, but merely looked at her questioningly. I was not ready for that move.

I was perplexed by all three of these artists and was unable to place them into a
context where I might use them…use them understandingly. But eventually,
something like several decades later [This was true except for a part of Cezanne I began to
use, briefly, by the time I was nearly thirty, but really only as an example to my students.

Henrickson c.1954

But eventually, something like several decades later, what had been discarded as
excrement had cured. and I was able to incorporate it into my expressive
vocabulary.

So, as another take off on Till, I, figuratively, reached back into the pit or down into
the out house of human reality. Now, I wonder why that Parisian Gallery owner
hadn’t told me that everything an artist does and what he experiences becomes an
organic and natural extension of who he is. Perhaps she hadn’t herself, been able
to put it into words, at least none that would have functioned properly.

Charles Saatchi Iraqi Jewish family in Baghdad, Iraq (the name "Saatchi" means
"Watchmaker" a loan word from Persian and distantly Turkish). Arabic: ‫ )تشارلز ساعاتجي‬was the co-founder with his brother
Maurice of the global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, which became the world's biggest before the brothers were
forced out of their own company in 1995. In the same year the Saatchi brothers formed a new agency called M&C Saatchi.
Many large clients followed, and their new agency quickly overtook their former agency in Britain's top ten. Charles is also
known worldwide as an art collector and owner of the Saatchi Gallery, and in particular for his sponsorship of the Young
British Artists (YBAs), including Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin.

If there was anything to learn from the shambles of Prince Charles’s relationship and treatment of Lady
Diana is that the only properly appropriate conditions for a marriage is an agreeable bargain…and one cannot agree if there is
lurking somewhere a secret. Truth, it seems, had become increasingly important, at least it seemed to have done in that
relationship.

Till Eulenspiegel with Nijinsky as Till, (1916)

Stein sol nie“Disen man erhaben. Hie stat Ulenspiegel begraben.” It is apparent
that someone moved the grave stone covering the spot where Till is believed to
have been buried for the spirit of Till is abroad still. That rock didn’t hold that ghost
down. There are still Tills pointing out society’s failures to attain to its ideals…
taunting them for their ridiculous pretensions. Perhaps the emergence of such
characters is similar to that of mushrooms when something in the earth starts to

rot.

YET, should these Tills become the sole source of aesthetic information? Should
society’s perceptions be limited to soiled behinds…or the stains on Emin’s bed
sheets, or the apotheotic reportage of Roberta Smith?

These phrases are intended to draw the reader’s attention to the rhetorical devices
that author uses to ennoble, or to seam to ennoble, the individual known as
Kippenberger. If these characteristics which have been so graciously attached to the
memory of Mr. Kippenberger are, indeed, virtues, however should one consider the
contributions of a Jan Vermeer whose total output, after centuries of search has not

yet exceeded 27, or that of Massaccio who died at

the age of 27. In short, is the quantity or breadth of work a proper criterion of
aesthetic value? If Massaccio accomplished this fresco before he was 27 what was
it that Kippenberger was doing in his extra 16 years?

Rouault, it has been reported, ceremoniously burned many of his canvasses some
years before he died, ostensibly to make his aesthetic vision a clearer one for those
who cared to look with understanding.

Ms. Smith has done us no favors by muddying the critical waters. On the other hand
her oblique use of the term “tenebrionid” suggests she is very much aware of what
she is doing, and, perhaps, has some serious questions of her own regarding that
activity…but it does make smooth the way for clowns like Raphael Labro a

Frenchman importantly prancing about with Dame Francoise

 Tempra, (Venice-born, U.K.citizen) on the Mediterranean Island of
Gozo and successfully involving occupants of prestigious positions in, what is for
me, a vain effort to legitimize what amounts to a fraudulent circus. Are these
people our contemporary Tills….compelling us to see the reflection of the
ridiculous?

Sergey Medvedev, Director of Russian Cultural Centre, Dr. Fr. Marius Zerafa, Claudia Attard distributor Pernod Malta, Raphael Labro (France) First Prize Painting
2009 Malta Biennale, Dame Francoise Tempra President Malta Biennale, Joan Haber Vice-President Malta Biennale and Leon Meynet Vice-President Malta
Biennale for Switzerland.

All these people with the equally misdirected wannabe maestro impressario,
Charles Zammit , functioning on a Nationalist government salary as director of a
truly handsome exhibition facility the Cittadella, have leashed the public relations
forces of the media and government officials, both domestic and foreign, and are
perpetrating a criminal conceptual rape on the minds of an uninformed and

compliant public. It is the age of the lie, the pretender, the hoax,
the fraud, a culture of not very intelligent and certainly not caring exemplars of the
Till Eulinspiegel syndrome.
Cultures are very strange creations. Till’s may not have been fully aware that their
foibles were the subject of gross ridicule, and the culture of the Emperor with his
new clothes was a culture that was aware but were fearful. Evidently Malta is not
alone in sponsoring mindless entertainment, it is merely following the fashion of
London, New York and Los Angeles. The characters are different. There it may be
Kippenberger, the tipsy, in Malta it is Labro, the Perno huckster.

None of these people know what they should know, but it would be hard to argue
with success , as interpreted by the not fully informed, and the impressive
reputational weight of the Tate, the New York Times, MOCA and the MOMA, all very
upbeat, up to date and not to be up-staged.

It is appropriate, at this point, that I make clear what my approach to art critical
behavior might be. It has, of course, evolved as a result of my insights and
experiences. What I have been conscious of in the mental processes involved in
making judgments regards the level, or the kind, or the purpose, of creative
behavior in the visual arts began, for me, in the middle nineteen sixties when I

started studying in greater detail the work of Caravaggio.

I had not initially liked Caravaggio’s work, even while I recognized its merits, but I
never understood why until I recognized that my dislike was more related to my
biased needs, or my apprehensions, and nothing, if anything at all, to do with
Caravaggio. When it finally occurred to me that if my problems were interfering with
my understandings it could well be that Caravaggio’s work revealed his problems
and that the creative process he was going through was evidence of his having
struggled to solve, or understand, those problems. That notion provided me with a
more reasonable basis for understanding the differences in performance between
artists and loosened my notion of the purpose of artistic technique which I now saw,
more clearly, as simply one of the ways an artist symbolized his struggle. It seemed

to shed light on the reasons why van Gogh was different from Rouault

and they both different from Bourgeureau and why, over

the long run, the general and evolving direction of art production and criticism was
emphasizing the individual creator as opposed to the interests of the commercial
client…the patron. In this way, also, I was better able to accept the, until then,
somewhat reprehensible notion that art was therapy. But I also learned that not all
the artistic events and personalities that appeared revealed that characteristic.
Some, were very clever mimics.

I hadn’t much liked that notion before, the notion that the individual artist had to
be the one, and the only one, to determine what his goals were to be. I mistrusted
the concept largely because it seemed to make room for more simplistic and
nonsense behavior than I had felt desirable. Also, the expressed attitudes of those
who were then advocating therapy as the primary acceptable reason for art
production seemed to denigrate achievement based on some comparative level as
it was usually assessed by objective critics. Of course, it also became apparent,
later, that “objective critics” also had needs and that they might satisfy some of
those at the expense of the artist’s goals…criticism is a tricky matter. It, too, can be
a mirror held up for self-inspection. On the other hand is it legitimate to judge the
value of art on the ways and the extent to which an artist solves his personal
problems? Are his personal problems, are his solutions to them, of any purposeful
interest to us at all?

However, in this instance and at this time, my criticism is directed more toward the
assembly of personages surrounding the creative artist and their motivations, than
it is toward, shall we say, Martin Kippenberger, himself. I view his role with respect
to their success not unlike that of the man who kept Joseph Merrick, “The Elephant

Man” as an exhibit for commercial gain. When Kippenberger may

have been splashing about in a pool of uncertainties and doubts he seems to have
been surrounded only by those who were mainly entertained, amused and titillated
by the man’s behaviors…at that man’s expense.

By way of illustration van Gogh, who may have had more immediately serious
problems than Kippenberger had, at least, a loyal friend in his brother who was
there to support him both financially and psychologically. Whether van Gogh’s
success as an artist, as evidenced by his ability to bring together cohesive graphic
imagery symbolically stitching together, piece by piece, violently individual aspects
of his life because of his brother’s help may not be known,
but, I think, it may be pretty clear that Kippenberger lacked that kind of help and
received instead only the appreciation provided by the temporary and self-
indulgent amusement of admirers..others who may be encouraging another’s
downfall in order to gratify their need for diversion…”there, but for the grace of
God, go I”. In short, his associates helped him in his efforts to die…and continue to
rejoice in his failed efforts to mend his soul.das ist eine kleine schadenfreude … I
do not like those people, nor do I think this the most ennoblingpurpose of art. We
are being failed and we are failing and while van Gogh and his relationship with his
associates and the contemporary society generally may not have been a clear
mirror of his time it seems to me that Kippenberger may be closer to that sort of
comparison.

Roberta Smith of the New York Times writes of Martin Kippenberger (25 February
1953 in Dortmund – 7 March 1997 in Vienna) was a German artist known for his
extremely prolific output in a dizzying range of styles and media as well as his
provocative, jocular and hard-drinking public persona. He died at age of 43from liver cancer.
Kippenberger was "widely regarded as one of the most talented German artists of
his generation," according to Roberta Smith of the New York Times. He was at the center
of a generation of German enfants terribles including Albert Oehlen, Werner Büttner, Dieter
Göls, and Günther Förg. Georg Herold, He collected and commissioned work by many of his
peers: some of his exhibition posters were designed by such prominent artists as Jeff
Koons, Christopher Wool, Rosemary Trockel and Mike Kelley[….all these helping each other and
the rest of us to being engulfed in consensual dissolution.]…(the underscored emphasis is mine. The
phrases in bold face are in bold face to emphasize their role as position indicators, stage
directions on how to interpret meaning.)
Roberta Smith’s comment:"widely regarded* almost reads like a threat of excommunication if one
disagreed with the interpretation of the numbers.
 Smith Emin

* Somehow, this reads, like much else, as though the reader hadn’t the choice of a difference of
opinion…the mass of the unidentified “widely” [a true adherence to democratic virtues] prohibits [upon
threat of exile] any difference of opinion…but then, of course, Ms. Smith is a reporter…a contemporary
reporter.
Kippenberger's artistic reputation and influence has grown since his death.[of course, it is an
economic inevitability. If he is dead there is more for the dealers/heirs.] He has been the subject
of several large retrospective exhibitions, including at the Tate Modern in 2006 and
"the Problem Perspective" at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in 2008;
the exhibition traveled to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2009.
In 2008 his sculpture of a toad being crucified called Zuerst die Füsse ("First the Feet") was
allegedly condemned by Pope Benedict as blasphemous
He was a member of the Lord Jim Lodge. [this title even borrows from conservative
contemporary society the image, but not the substance, of community service organizations.]
Beware the person intend upon self-sacrifice…he actually enjoys company.
Once again, at this point, I need to make something clear. While I do see a great deal of value in
an artist conducting visual experiments in the area of the new and the possible, exploring, as it
were, the potential to discover what approach, or combination of approaches, might render a
new, a workable, and valuable image that will carry whatever it is the artist needs to convey.
Because of the need to engage the attention of the viewer….after all, painting is a visual art…it
may be reasonable to suppose that some artists have lost their ways in that wilderness of
experimentation and forgotten to reintegrate the new with what they already knew. Others, such

as Larry Rivers made the attempt but, in my opinion, failed as

did Paul Jenkins whose work consists mainly of the same motive repeated endlessly,
 but Hyman Bloom, for whatever his motivations,
very carefully moved, shifted and developed his interests in more cautious, but meaningfully

innovative ways. As an example of work where

changes are not really very meaningful I submit one of Paul Brach
The resurrection of Till Eulenspiegle in this regard is significant for he was the German prankster
who joked his way to the truth he wanted others to see.
In the legend, he is presented as a trickster. or one behaving foolishly, who played
practical jokes on his contemporaries, exposing vices at every turn, greed and folly,
hypocrisy and foolishness. "The fulcrum of his wit in a large number of the tales is
his literal interpretation of figurative language."[2ul'n Spegel and by this comparison
Smith seems to be alluding to the possibility that Kippenberger’s work is “shit” ..a
beautiful announcement damningly enunciated and not unlike Leo Steinberg’s oft
quoted description of the work of Paul Brach "the invisibility of an encompassing,
undifferentiated homogeneity,"

I Love Kippenberger
by Nicole Davis

Today, the contemporary art world loves Martin Kippenberger, the peripatetic 1980s German artist who
died of cancer at age 43 in 1997. With that mega-magnet for art collectors, the Armory Show 2005, open
this week in New York, it's no surprise that Kippenberger's works are on view in three galleries
“The fever [a PR term to encourage us to get on the band wagon…no one wants to be left out….do they?] has extended to the West
Coast.”

Kippenberger's self-portrait .
“Kippenberger was celebrated for his rambunctious spirit as much as for his artistic output, which
encompassed visual art in every medium; performance, innumerable posters and books, a brief stint in a
band, and ‘Kippenberger's Office’ his own mock-bureaucratic version of Warhol's Factory. He was the
veritable mayor of beatnik Berlin, famous for limitless energy and an admirable ability to make things
happen. He was a virtuoso, a walking medium living out the many roles of the artist in the late 20th
century -- hero, degenerate, sexual deviant, dumb tourist, pathetic drunk, handsome movie star, and sick
and drowning man, like a wandering harlequin always subject to the whims of the audience [true!
The emphasis is mine] before he became an artist, Kippy was a failed actor).”

He also failed as an artist…thanks to his irreverent audience. Had he been left free to symbolically work
out his problems his mental, physical and creative well-being might have manifested and we, as the
audience, benefited from a truly creative accomplishment. Instead, he was made a celebrity and, like
most celebrities, we watch them die. We help them to die, we WANT them to die. So, in this regard, Pope
Benedict got it wrong, the image was not blasphemous since the body on the cross was not an image of
Christ, but that of Kippenberger who felt torn apart by the character of money and alcohol and THIS
interpretation supports my view that art works are therapeutic vehicles…you describe the disorder and
then you symbolically manipulate its facets… treat the disorder by rearranging the symbols.
“Kippenberger was Warhol's German heir”, [I cannot disagree with this but I think Kippenberger’s work better]
“constructing his fame from his own crazy marvel at himself, at every little thing he could do, in different
clothes in varying scenery, whatever he could dream up or get away with. Most of all we fell in love with
the tenebrionid (a beetle that feasts on dead flesh) who could take from us our own darkness and

failures and reflect them back onto the world.”

This is Nicole Davis’s excellent description [but the emphasis is mine] which causes me to ask whether if the
creation of the work of art may symbolize a psychic adjustment to imbalance mightn’t the observer’s
participation be a catalyst for his own? How might one go about discouraging another hischoice of
remedy? It seems that I might be arguing myself out of a position. But then, Davis and I could be wrong.
On the other hand are we, somehow, revealing a significant chasm between verbal artistry and non-verbal
artistry, for it seems, from time to time, that the words used to describe certain art works, generally conceptual
ones, are much more effectively employed than the materials found in the art works themselves…. I
wonder what that means, especially when I’d rather read Roberta Smith than look at most of
Kippenberger’s work.
Jackson Pollack . who was more “in line” is reported as having said:"The painting has a life of its own. I
try to let it come through." While this statement has, I believe, profound meaning, it is, I also believe,
making the wrong emphasis. The “coming through” part is the artist’s response…the work is only the
medium.

I have been advised that if my goal is to change the behavior of those whose incomes are derived
from the tom foolery I’ve been describing that I should expect failure. I do not expect to be successful
in changing anyone’s established behavior most especially when that behavior is rewarded by what is
known as consensual validation (falsely premised as it is), and by what makes the world go round,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRIbUT6u7Q but I do have rather shaky hopes that some open-
minded, undecided, perceptive, not-yet fallen angel, might be kept, by this alternative offering, from
being swept up into the maelstrom of adolescent deceit.
SHIFTING GEARS

At this point, in order to make a rather special effort to clarify my approach to understanding
phenomena I need to make a reference to some partially clinical experimental psychological work I
performed while a research assistant to E. Paul Torrance at the then Bureau of Educational Research
located at The University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

The main focus of the Bureau was to research behavior which might be thought to be creative. At this
time that sort of effort on the part of research academics had been in effect for only about a decade
and I coming, as I did, from a background of the arts felt very much all at ease among a group whose
sensual contacts with the outside world seemed restricted to what could be enumerated. In that
company I felt very much like an octopus or squid with my numerous feely tentacles being the source
of my being considered an abnormality…so, I his them away the way some lesbians tend to secrete
their voluminous breasts.

One of the tasks Dr.Torrance was using to determine levels of creative behavior among populations
was what he called “the circles test”, I do not know whether he devised that one or not but what it
was a sheet of ordinary-sized writing paper upon which were drawn about thirty 1, ½ inch circles in
neat rows and columns making up the entire sheet. The instructions given the test subjects were
simple. Make as many different objects out of these circles within a period of time as you can.

Upon the completion of these tasks by whatever the population, they were collected and given me to
score. It was my duty to count the variously different alterations of these circles that were present. If
there is anything a statistician likes to do it is to count. Somehow, that seems as morally satisfying to
them as saying the rosary is to another.

I did what I was told because, for me, that is sometimes morally satisfying. But remained detached
and uninvolved with the task until I came across a product that really stood out in high relief. To begin
with this subject had disobeyed instructions, broken all the assumed rules and flamboyantly
displayed his imagination by changing these thirty circles into 30 rocks upon which an octopus
crawled.

To begin with I found it rather surprising that the idea of an octopus might be foremost in anyone’s
mind, especially that of a 10 year-old in Minneapolis, Minnesota which is about as far away from an
octopus natural habitat as one might get. Of course we were unfamiliar with this subject’s experiences
or his imagination.

There were other and highly significant meanings to this subject’s product. He had done that no other
subject had done which was to create a unifying universe for all the thirty circles where as all
other subjects had accepted the given limitations he paid them no mind and redesigned the world
as defined for him by Dr. Torrance. His score should have been “off the scale”, but as it existed the
scoring procedure had, probably unintentionally, severely restricted such performance and the
designers had probably not expected to encounter an imagination superior to its own.

I was ecstatic, but I communicated nothing to anyone for my own tentacles were still in retreat simply
as a matter of self-defense.

As I recall, it was in response to this experience that I, already in search of a thesis subject, designed
what became to be called The Creativity Design Task. This task provided the subject with prepared
geometric shapes, triangles squares and circles, in two different sizes and in three colors, red, green

and black. There were, in addition, also in those colors , three each of strips,
measuring approximately ¼ inch by three inches. I also, out of respect for verbal creativity thought up
some improbable situations for what became The Just Suppose Task as an assignment from Dr.
Torrance.

The Creativity Design Task was created in response to the realization that a person involved in the
creation of what we call “works of art” is nothing if not involved in the alteration of whatever raw
material is before him. As a result, as good psychologists and virtuous statisticians, we count and
what we count are the numbers (there we go again) and the kinds (there we go again) of alterations…or
manipulations. In the case of The Creativity Design Task this ended up being a score which was called
“The high manipulation score”.

Another measure used in this experiment was the aesthetic judgment of these works provided by
individuals whose background in the visual arts should have provided them with the requirements to
make acceptable judgments. In this experimental effort and all similar efforts conducted later there
were consistently high correlations between these measures, that is, the degree of change, or
manipulation, of the raw material (triangles, squares, circles and strips) and the aesthetic scores
assigned them by experts. It seemed, therefore, that manipulation, or changes produced in a raw
material was a reliable measure of creative thinking in regard to the potential residing in the
interaction of the mind of the subject with the raw material.

When one looks at the broad spectrum of art history and the associated areas of expression one
becomes aware that this observation has been brought out time and time again. It is, in fact, what
makes the history of that human activity. Human activity implies manipulation, and what the nature
and the extent of that manipulation might be where it concerns works such as Kippenberger’s might,
not unlike the results found in The Creativity Design Task, mirror the degree of creative mental
involvement. Compare the Kippenberger with the van Gogh, for example.

I realize that the approaches being used in this present analysis will, respectively, be found offensive
and intolerable by both and either of these intellectual camps. Both these disciplines, that of statistical
psychology and that of art history and criticism consider themselves virtuous when following
procedural rules, but with both shared and altered insights from both disciplines I will proceed in the
fashion I deem best. Protocols are, after all, for the unimaginative, but as I need some I shall invent
them.

The reader might also consider that there may be, and probably are, very many more factors which go
into aesthetic assessments and quite possibly as many ways of assessing those assessments. If that
very complicated process yields an expansion of the parameters of our awareness we should be
encourage, if not excited or content. We are, it would seem, then, developing and evolving. Now, how
one steers, or guides that evolvement is another matter and in the course of that directional
maneuvering lies Kippenberger’s fate.