The Happy End of Franz Kafka’s ‘Amerika’ (1994) forms the heart of the Martin Kippenberger exhibition. © Tate Modern.

Although German artist Martin Kippenberger is one of the most influential artists of the last thirty years, his work, until now, has remained largely unfamiliar to British audiences.

More than two hundred of Kippenberger’s works have been brought together for an exhibition at London’s Tate Modern, running until May 14 2006.

Between the mid-1970s and his premature death in 1997 – he died of liver cancer, aged only 44 – Kippenberger produced a rich and diverse body of work, inspired by popular culture, art, architecture, music, politics and history. His art took many forms: as well as paintings, objects, installations and multiples, he produced books, posters and cards.

Untitled (1981), based on an image supplied by Kippenberger and executed by Berlin sign painter Mr Werner. © Tate Modern.

His works are displayed in chronological order over eight rooms. The heart of the exhibition is his large-scale 1994 installation, The Happy End of Franz Kafka’s ‘Amerika’, last exhibited five years ago in the US and never before shown in the UK.

The Happy End of Franz Kafka’s ‘Amerika’ comprises an assortment of objects and furniture described by curator Jessica Morgan as “an exhibition within an exhibition”. Many of the objects are works of art in themselves – some taken from previous Kippenberger exhibitions, some by other artists.

The installation is based on Kafka’s novel, Amerika, which Kafka never finished writing, and which Kippenberger once claimed never to have finished reading. Since the novel is incomplete, it was possible for Kippenberger to provide his own happy ending through the work.

Likeable Communist Woman (1983), a provocative political image. © Tate Modern.

In Kafka’s novel, the protagonist, Karl Rossmann, arrives to America full of dreams. America, however, proves not to be a land of opportunities. At the end, Karl boards for a train directed to the ‘Theater of Oklahama’.

Kippenberger’s tables and chairs, set on a green basketball court, represent Kafka’s description of the series of interviews which await immigrants in the USA. It is an enormous recruitment centre where, after much bureaucracy, Karl finally finds a job.

Aside from this central piece, the first room of the exhibition features four paintings belonging to a 1981 series entitled Lieber Maler, male mir (Dear Painter, paint for me). The paintings, based on images supplied by Kippenberger, were executed by another artist – a recurrent theme in Kippenberger’s work. Two of them feature Kippenberger himself.

No Brown Chocolate (1994) shows Kippenberger's interest in the world of marketing and popular culture. © Tate Modern.

The next room brings together a range of paintings from the early 80s to the mid-90s sharing the same dimensions. Sympathische Kommunistin (Likeable Communist Woman, 1983), shows Kippenberger’s interest in socialist art and his provocative, and often humorous, way of dealing with political matters – Kippenberger never sides with one cause; his view is always balanced, often through irony.

As well as the paintings, the room contains many of Kippenberger’s invitation cards, photographs, ephemera and books. Exhibition catalogues and books were important to Kippenberger, who considered them as independent works of art.

A more recent work, Untitled (1991), is shown on the sixth room. It consists of a series of white lacquer paintings on white canvas, which have been recessed into the walls of the gallery, and are based on a conversation between Kippenberger and an eight year old boy.

Please Don't Send Me Home (1983) - one of Kippenberger's many self-portraits. © Tate Modern.

In the question-and-answer session the artist and the boy discuss some of Kippenberger’s paintings and the boy makes, again and again, the same comment - “sehr gut” (very good). The work includes some grammatical and spelling mistakes. It isn’t the only one as an earlier painting features the deliberate misspelling “political corect”.

The exhibition ends with an installation, Heavy Burschi (Heavy Guy, 1991), which is rarely seen in its complete form: on the walls are displayed the photographs of 51 paintings which Kippenberger asked an assistant to make, but decided to destroy as he found them “too good”. In the centre of the room, in a skip, are the remnants of the original paintings.

Martin, into the Corner, You Should Be Ashamed of Yourself (1989) - a cast of the artist made as a reaction to an unfavourable review. © Tate Modern.

Throughout the exhibition it’s apparent how Kippenberger’s art is often related to previous works of his, or of others. The Happy End of Franz Kafka’s ‘Amerika’ uses earlier pieces as part of the installation and elsewhere a related group of drawings are shown. Even the exhibition catalogues and books produced by Kippenberger are works of art in themselves.

In Heavy Burschi, then, we can see some of the defining themes in Kippenberger’s art: how he often uses earlier works, or the works of other artists, and his irony. The destruction of the assistant’s paintings, which may be expected to be an act of artistic rebirth, comes across, instead, as an act of violence.