1938, Berlin - 1997, Hamburg

The potential of art as a tool for political action using a visual system of mapping and statistics is at the core of KP Brehmer's artistic investigations. During the 1970s, he created a method for visualising statistics and data to critically interpret the consequences of contemporary social, political and economic developments. He often reproduced his graphic works without editioning them, allowing them to circulate freely outside of the commercial art system. A selection of Brehmer's works from 1968 to 1980 offer a critical perspective on a wide range of researched topics, referring, for example, to stock market dealing, the price of zinc and potatoes, the international influence of US politics, and the war in Vietnam.
Soul and Feelings of the Worker (1978-1980) takes as its point of departure, the work of psychologist and researcher Rex Ford B. Hersey on the worker's state of mind during the process of production. Following Hersey's criteria for more than a year, and using a specific colour for different states of mind, KP Brehmer developed a chart that shows both the passage of time and the scale of mood and temperament. The study is based on the emotional life of one selected worker and indirectly on his attitude towards the nature of work and its conditions. Given the current neoliberal uncertainties about the labour market and the reduction of social rights, Brehmer's work brings to the fore the need to question the basic conditions of labour beyond the efficiency of capitalist logic.