Joe Brockerhoff

posted in: blog, Memento | 0

We remember Joe Brockerhoff (1952 - 2023)

Joe Brockerhoff, in his studio near Düsseldorf, 2007. (c) ArtExpert.de
Joe Brockerhoff, in his studio near Düsseldorf, 2007.
(c) ArtExpert.de


Johannes (Joe) Brockerhoff was a painter and philosopher, born 1952 in Leipzig.
Our very close friend died February 2023 in Meerbusch/Düsseldorf. Rip!
When he was still a child, he left with his family the Deutsche Demokratische Republik for West Germany. In Düsseldorf at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf he had studied philosophy and with Joseph Beuys he was his student for art.
His work is very close to conceptual pop art, in this case sometimes familiar to the figural and colour world by Jeff Koons. He was a remarkable pioneering spray-artist, maybe one of the greatest worldwide. With colour-intensive paintings, in the transition from realism to surrealism, Brockerhoff worked on his themes of lust, passion and peace. His artistic creations also included digital art, sculpture, photography and cartoons. 
His virtuous technic made him generally an unique master of painting, on one side very close to the renaissance wallpainting tradition and on the other side part of the contemporary street art as well. A creator of finest paintings, he was also one of the very few artists able to design and decorate huge objects like castles, airplanes or trains. A specific  characteristic of his artistic concept was that he liked to exceed social boundaries. He created as well for adult entertainment places and for funfairs as for important private and public art collections in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy, Greece, Russia, Emirates, Japan and the US.

Among his close artists friends were Sigmar Polke, Georg Polke, Memphis Schulze, Heinz Günter Mebusch, A.P. Astra, Heinz Zolper, Fuji Akai, Michael Jansen, Stephan Runge and Achim Dechow. Together with Achim Duchow and Norbert Faehling, Joe Brockerhoff founded the MedienMafia (MM) in Düsseldorf, which was a concept and a place for artists friends to bring art and life closer together.