Olaf Metzel: I like the black square more than the red flag

Every four years, the Jerg Ratgeb Prize is awarded by the HAP Grieshaber Foundation in Reutlingen. In 2018, the prize went to Olaf Metzel. Originally co-founded by HAP Grieshaber and Rolf Szymanski, the prize stands for "the freedom of art and for nonviolence in the struggle for more humanity." Jerg Ratgeb (1480–1526) was a painter from Southern Germany whose altarpieces can still be seen today in the parish church of Schwaigern. During the Peasants' War, the insurgents elected him to the War Council as Chancellor; at the side of Duke Ulrich, he fought for the recovery of his territories, which eventually led him to be brought to justice in Pforzheim in 1526. He was convicted of treason and "torn apart by four horses." The book, published on the occasion of the award ceremony and in connection with the exhibition at Kunstmuseum Spendhaus in Reutlingen, presents a chronological retrospective with exhibition views of Olaf Metzel's work, which has stood out from the very beginning with harsh realism and spectacular settings, and won the artist not only international recognition, but also a certain amount of hostility.

Herbert Eichhorn is director of the Reutlingen Art Museum Spendhaus. He is an art historian and writer. Olaf Metzel has been a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich since 1990. He has had numerous solo exhibitions in Germany and abroad, and earned prizes such as the Villa Massimo Prize and the Jerg-Ratgeb-Prize. He is the editor of the publications Basisarbeit, Rote Zelle, and Circus Wols. Tilman Osterwold was the director of the Württembergische Kunstverein in Stuttgart and formed it to a leading institution in South Germany. He was also the artistic director of the ZPK Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern.