The 2012 Artist Label

A thunderstorm for Casanuova di Nittardi 2012

Karl Otto Götz has painted for the winery Nittardi the 32nd label and wrapping paper

The artist turned 100 in February. But he still unleashes powerful tempests. Stunningly vivid and vibrant thunderstorms. And Karl Otto Götz has just released a new one on canvas: for the label of the Chianti Classico Casanuova di Nittardi 2012, a pure Sangiovese from Vigna Doghessa, the hillside vineyard of Nittardi, a winery in the heart of Toscana. Karl Otto Götz has painted both the label and the accompanying wrapping paper.

 

 

He now joins the ranks of the other internationally renowned artists — such as Hundertwasser and Yoko Ono; Horst Janssen and Corneille; Günter Grass, Dario Fo, Kim Tschang Yeul and Pierre Alechinsky – who have contributed to the collection of labels since it began in 1981. In the early thirties, the paintings of Götz, a native of Aachen, Germany, displayed the characteristics of Expressionism and Surrealism, but 1952 proved to be a turning point in his artistic production: while mixing wallpaper paste for his son Axel, he discovered the advantageous combination of paste and color. Using paintbrushes of different sizes, Götz applied color onto the glue-covered canvas only to immediately scrape it away with a squeegee. The resulting structures could be created much more quickly with the combination of paste and watercolors than with viscous oil colors. And thus the artistic concept of Karl Otto Götz was born: the Art Informel. Since the day of this discovery – and no longer by coincidence – Götz has produced the famous, distinctive paintings and gouaches that have made him one of the most important international representatives of the Informel and Action Painting. Works in which, as an art critic in Berlin has said, “the formal elements of the Informel create energy-loaded centers”. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, in November 2009, Götz’s largeformat painting October 3rd was hung in the German Bundestag, the parliament building of the nation. And this year, the life work of the (literal) centennial painter could be seen in the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.

The work of Karl Otto Götz — as energetic as ever. And also on the label of Nittardi’s Chianti Classico Casanuova di Nittardi Vigna Doghessa 2012.