Ralf König (born 1960 in Germany) has written and drawn stories about the relationships among adults for 30 years. Mostly, they focus on men, but increasingly, they deal with love between men and women. And recently, König even analyzes the relationship between men and God. Today, Ralf König’s stories are translated into many different languages. His success story started in the 1980s, when König published his first stories about life and love in the gay subculture. His lovingly stylized characters all have the same bulbous nose. Only erotic fantasies are depicted in a bluntly naturalistic manner. In 1987, Ralf König published the comic novel “Der bewegte Mann”, that reached an audience far beyond the gay scene. Since then, his stories have become more and more popular. With his wonderful sense of humour and an obvious pleasure in the sensual, Ralf König has done a lot to replace prejudice against homosexuality by knowledge and insight. He has always promoted a liberal and positive society and has taken a stand for freedom of speech. His latest works “Prototype” “Archetype” and “Antitype” deal with religions and are set in the Garden of Eden, on Noah’s Ark and among the Apostles. The exhibition presents a comprehensive overview of Ralf König’s work that spans thirty years of infinite creativity. He is not only the most important German comic artist, but also a wonderful narrator of surprising stories.
Curator: Anette Gehrig