Palermo: non-conformist and progressive – delimitating boundaries of form and color
The oeuvre that Blinky Palermo created over 15 years before his sudden death at the age of 33 is small and of outstanding art-historical significance. In 1977, Palermo died on the Maldives island of Kurumba while on vacation with his girlfriend Babett. By then he had created a courageous work characterized by a stylistic and formal progressiveness that was not only formative for other remarkable artists of his generation, among them Imi Knoebel or Gerhard Richter, but also for the most outstanding artists of subsequent generations. Shortly after he had joined the class of Joseph Beuys at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1964, Palermo, born Peter Heisterkamp, fellow students noticed a certain likeness to the American mafia affiliated box promoter Frank "Blinky" Palermo because of his casual look with sunglasses and leather jacket, soon after everyone called him Blinky Palermo. As early as in 1964, Palermo, who had just begun to study in Beuys' class, overcame early student experiments by creating a two meter tall, untitled , painted stick, thus creating a bold definition of his new pictorial concept in an instant. "It's a provocation: the color acts like in a painting, but the object leaves no room for it to act as an 'image'." (Erich Franz, Palermo – Freiheit des Sehens, in: Palermo – who knows the beginning and who knows the end?, ex. cat. Landesmuseum Münster / Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, 2011, p. 15). In 1965, he exhibited under his adopted artist name Blinky Palermo for the first time, he had his first solo exhibitions even before he completed his studies in 1967. In 1972, he took part in documenta 5 in Kassel, where, among others, the American artist Robert Ryman showed early works with monochrome structures. While Palermo's short life was extremely intense and restless, he would never miss out an opportunity, least on a party, his work, from the beginning on, is characterized by a fascinating unity and rigor. The complex, experimental handling of form and color, which Palermo sought to liberate to the max, is typical of all of his creative phases. Palermo dislimitated and overcame traditional painting. Palermo conceived painting and object art as one, developed new formats, created minimalist murals, and, among other things, was open to using new types of image carriers for his fabric and metal paintings.

Palermo's final creative phase (1974–1977) - multi-part works on metal as both essence and apex of his creation
The small painterly oeuvre that Palermo left behind in 1977 can be divided into three creative phases: In early works (1962–1967) made during his time as a student at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, Palermo began to explore the possibilities of painterly means in the form of canvas-, object- and first material images. A second creative phase spanned the years between 1968 and 1973. A period characterized by an increased minimization of the painting in his fabric pictures and his spatial murals towards pure coloring and an expansion into its surrounding space. Palermo's central aim was to free color from its formal and material limitations of form and image support. In addition to monochrome, geometric wall designs, almost all of which are unfortunately no longer preserved today, he made "shaped canvases" and multi-part wall objects during this time. Works that show clear parallels to the contemporary work of American Minimal Art and Hard Edge. Like Frank Stella, Barnett Newman, Brice Marden or Walter de Maria, Palermo also tried to leave the formal boundaries of the classic panel painting behind in the 1960s and to explore the relationship of art and space. Palermo, who also worked as bartender in the legendary art bar ‘Creamcheese’ during these years playing pinball all night long, developed reduced artistic creations that - partly in giant format, partly as objects, or executed directly on the wall - interact with their surrounding space.
What followed was Palermo's final, mature creative phase, which took place partly in the USA from 1974 until his untimely death in 1977, and from which our two paintings on aluminum originate. As studio photos shot by his artist friend Imi Knoebel show, these are the last two works Palermo created before he departed for the Maldives.
Palermo's last creative phase is considered the pinnacle of his condensed oeuvre, representing the sum of all his previous work. Palermo began working almost exclusively in multiples, creating his first multi-panel paintings on steel and on thin aluminum panels that appeared to float in front of the wall. In these progressive creations, which are extremely rare on the international art market, Palermo succeeded in staging the intrinsic value of color in maximum liberation from the wall and the image carrier. In these works, Palermo took his quest to remove the boundaries of color to an extreme and ventured into something completely new, both in terms of technique and form. This was to have a central influence on the later work of Imi Knoebel, Gerhard Richter, and Günther Förg. The precisely defined sequence of image and wall space can be understood as a rhythm that links the color surface and immaterial space. Palermo drew crucial inspiration from American jazz music and his enthusiasm for Thelonious Monk and Stevie Wonder. Palermo exhibited his metal paintings at the 13th São Paulo Biennial in 1975. In 1976, just before the present works were created, Palermo staged a multi-part work in the German Pavilion at the 37th Venice Biennale. At the time, Palermo was at the peak of his creative powers, which was to come to an abrupt end shortly afterwards with his death on the Maldives island of Kurumba. This death remains a mystery to this day.
With a view to the first Palermo exhibition at the Heiner Friedrich and Dahlem Gallery in Munich (1966), Franz Dahlem emphasized the completely novel character of Palermo's painting, particularly about its multi-part nature: "And then came the exhibition, which was very different from our 15 previous ones. Palermo had his works shipped to Munich. They lay around unpacked in the gallery. Some of them were multi-part works that we could never have installed on our own. We hadn't known that a work of art could be multi-part; that hadn't existed until then. [...] These were not altar paintings, but monochrome or abstract works that consisted of multiple parts.“ (quoted from: Digne M, Marcovicz (eds.), ”To the people ..." Sprechen über Blinky Palermo, Cologne 2003, p. 118f.).

Rhythmic color tones of floating lightness – the beginning of a new phase of work before Palermo's sudden death
" In two series on small aluminum panels, Palermo evidently began something new. Open, permeable, almost cloudy color appearances, which he had previously only realized as ‘drawings’ on paper, interact with the solid panels. A four-part series separates the white background from the wall using two narrow black strips at the edges; yellow penetrates this white, both as a faint mist and as an angular shape. It begins to glow, and the combined brightness is set in motion [...] The intangible becomes sensual energy. In this series, there are no longer any horizontal correspondences as in all previous metal paintings, but rather an ever-similar emergence and disappearance that is constantly changing. [...] A second series is even more unusual; it consists of eight small panels painted entirely in lemon yellow over a white primer. The first four show broad green brushstrokes in this yellow, as if blown in, while the other four have no additional paintwork. The implied green forms maintain a precise balance between gossamer-like transparency and clarity—as diagonals, as horizontals, as upright rectangular surfaces, as vertical halves. [...] The green floats in front of it, dips into it, and emerges from it; it is the voice that moves. There is no comparable work by Palermo [...] one senses a new approach in these works, luminous color, hinted at effortlessly, a liberation—perhaps." (Erich Franz, in: Palermo – who knows the beginning and who knows the end?, exhibition catalog, Westfälisches Landesmuseum, Münster / Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, 2011, p. 27)
The character of these color panels is ethereal and distinctly delicate. In their subtly orchestrated sequence, they merge into a wonderful harmony of colors, allowing the spiritual power of color to be experienced. As if blown away, the powerful brushstrokes in lemon yellow applied to the white primer in “Untitled (4-part)” appear to float in a fleeting format: Were it not for the fine defining black border strips that Palermo applied in a rhythmic alternation on the right and left or top and bottom, the ascending formations in bright yellow would float freely over the pictorial surface and far beyond its boundaries like gently floating balloons.
The strict horizontal and vertical structure, achieved with the help of fine border strips, still allows explicit stylistic references to be made to the previous, strictly geometric works developed from Malevich's Suprematist painting and American Hard Edge. However, the fragmentary nature and floating balance create an illusion of gentle movement of color, seemingly captured in a fleeting moment.
In the second, eight-part composition on aluminum, the color also appears as though it were wafting away: the lemony yellow applied over the entire surface of the white primer, which on the first four panels is still interspersed with broad brushstrokes in soft green, in the ductus of which the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal structure of the previous, strictly geometric works can still be recognized. It is precisely the juxtaposition of these panels with the four monochrome ones that creates a sense of tense emptiness and an awareness of the absence of form, which extends beyond the format of the lemon-yellow panels. In the precisely defined sequence of the eight panels, these four appear like a tense pause in music, an echo of color that unfolds maximum effect with minimal means. Anyone who has ever heard Stevie Wonder's brilliant song “Happier than the Morning Sun,” which was one of Blinky Palermo's favorite songs in New York in 1974, knows how effectively this stylistic device could also be used in the contemporary American music scene, which Blinky Palermo was so enthusiastic about. Unlike Kandinsky, who also found inspiration for his abstract compositions in music, there is no evidence that Palermo was a synesthete, meaning that sounds did not evoke visual perceptions of colors and shapes in him. Nevertheless, these last two multi-part creations by Palermo, which exert a very special fascination due to their now exaggerated, ethereal, and fleeting character, seem like sounds made visible, filling the entire room with their almost spiritual aura.
Placed on thin aluminum panels floating in front of the wall, the materiality of the image carrier seems to dissolve and the color, emancipated from the image background, spreads into the surrounding space. The sequence of image and wall, precisely defined by Palermo through numbering on the reverse, creates an optical rhythm that playfully links color and space. The painting of the American Robert Ryman certainly provided central inspiration for this rhythmic multiplicity and for the ductus-based monochromy, which becomes increasingly significant in these last two paintings by Palermo. Ryman was already represented alongside Palermo at documenta 5 in 1972, and his work, characterized by its fluidity, must have gained further significance for Palermo during his stay in America (1974–1976).
Palermo could hardly have defined his departure to a new form of expression more artistically than he did in these outstanding creations, which are gentle yet powerful. The young artist was not to return from his trip to the Maldives. These two outstanding, multi-part compositions on aluminum are thus the last works by this completely unconventional, progressive and exceptional artist. Palermo painted them in his Düsseldorf studio shortly before his departure to join his girlfriend Babett on the Maldivian island of Kurumba. The green and yellow 8-part composition—as well as a correspondingly dedicated, multi-part work on paper in the Museum of Modern Art, New York—was for Babett, as Babett Scobel herself noted in retrospect: "We drove to the hotel. We lay down on the bed, and Blinky told me about his trip, his stopover in Karachi, and the great human disappointments he had experienced in recent days. He mentioned that he had just painted a green and yellow multi-part picture for me. And he described Franz Dahlem's visit in great detail. After that, we felt better and went to the sea. Blinky wore swimming trunks printed with dollar bills.“ (Babett Scobel, in: Digne M. Marcovicz (ed.), ”To the people ..." Sprechen über Blinky Palermo, Cologne 2003, p. 46.)
Palermo had only met Babett in 1976. After his break-up with his wife Kerstin and a brief relationship with the American painter Robin Bruch, who also lived in New York, he ventured into a new and, for him, brave beginning in a stable relationship. It is therefore not surprising that the dynamics, spontaneity, and lightness of the visual language abandon the closed massiveness and density of his previous works and show clear parallels to, among others, his series of works on paper “Happier than the morning sun (to Stevie Wonder)” (1974, private collection, southern Germany, also offered in this auction) and “Untitled (For Babette)” (1976, Museum of Modern Art, New York).
What might have followed in Palermo's work can only be speculated: The two multi-part paintings on aluminum presented here, which have been liberated from all formal rigidity, are the powerful beginning of a new chapter. However, the question discussed in Palermo research —whether the 8-part work in particular may not yet be finished —must remain one of the mysteries surrounding Palermo, as must the exact cause of Palermo's sudden death on the Maldives island of Kurumba. Could he pick up where he left off after his return? This question will probably remain unanswered, as the absence of a signature alone provides no clue, since Palermo repeatedly sold unsigned works directly or through the Galerie Heiner Friedrich, thereby considering them finished. Almost a fourth of the 200 paintings listed in Thordis Moeller's catalogue raisonné are unsigned. So would Palermo have felt the need to revisit this work after his return from the Maldives? We don't know, and Palermo himself probably wouldn't have been able to answer this question before his departure. “Who knows the beginning and who knows the end” (1976) is the telling title of one of his late, multi-part works on paper. Palermo could not have chosen a better title for his entire oeuvre, which is characterized by an open creative process that “can be complete even though all forms appear unfinished, and conversely, Palermo has repeatedly painted over pictures that appeared to be finished.” (Erich Franz, in: Palermo – who knows the beginning and who knows the end?, exhibition catalog, Westfälisches Landesmuseum, Münster / Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, 2011, p. 27). Even Palermo's sudden death at the age of only 33, which brought his entire oeuvre to an abrupt end shortly after the creation of the present work, ultimately fits in with a fascinating artistic oeuvre that, both in its individual parts and in its entirety, eludes any rational predictability and, precisely for this reason, continues to captivate us with its unique aura to this day.

The Palermo myth – there could have been so much more to come...
Today, Blinky Palermo and his work are considered legendary around the world. He was an exceptionally talented artist who died far too young. His nonconformity and enormous creative energy formed an artistic potential that could have led to so much more. These two compelling, liberated multi-part works mark the beginning of a new phase in his work. They are thus the only paintings by Palermo that offer a glimpse of what might have followed: a floating lightness that already characterizes Palermo's multi-part works on paper from this phase. Palermo succeeds in transferring this lightness to the medium of painting for the first time in his last two paintings. The art dealer Franz Dahlem, who was friends with Palermo from 1964 onwards, emphasized in retrospect that the time for Palermo's revolutionary oeuvre had not yet come, that he was tragically ahead of his time and the artistic tastes of society at that time: "That's why we have this tragedy in Germany that our significant artists often die very early. Then people say, he was killed in World War I, or Palermo died in Sri Lanka because of something. Then people speculate about why, because of drugs or something. Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin died because they took a big hit – it's all nonsense! They were taken away [...] because there wasn't enough strength in this society [...]." (quoted from: Digne M. Marcovicz (ed.), “To the people ...” Sprechen über Blinky Palermo, Cologne 2003, p. 127).
Palermo's progressive pictorial ideas must be experienced. Their captivating, quiet, yet space-filling aura and radiance can only be felt in front of the originals. They are, as art historian and museum director Dieter Ronte once aptly described, "the pride that would have led to great museums in other nations. This makes the shortness of his life and the relatively small number of works all the more tragic. Still, they also show, as with other geniuses of our century [...], that compression leads to intellectual results that might otherwise have been diluted." (Dieter Ronte, 1994, quoted from: Palermo. Pictures, Objects, Drawings, exhibition catalog, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn 1995, p. 11)
Today, Palermo's multi-part creations from this outstanding creative phase are part of important international museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Tate Modern, London, the Dia Center for the Arts, New York, and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne. His last two bright yellow, multi-part paintings on metal were most recently presented to the international art world in 2021/22 as part of the extensive traveling exhibition “Beuys + Palermo” (Tokyo/Osaka). [JS]