Markus Amm, born in 1969, German artist Markus Amm creates photograms, sculptures, paintings, collages and drawings that riff upon the language of modernist abstraction. Executed in 2002, the present work layers tape, enamel, edding and pencil on plywood, creating a witty tension between its rigorous geometric composition – evocative of Russian Constructivism and Bauhaus design – and its base, ephemeral materials. ‘You can’t act as though modernism can be reinvented’, argues Amm. ‘… Humour and irony are perhaps a good way to approach it.

I wasn’t interested in holy values that lay claim to a final and timeless beauty. I don’t believe in that; on the contrary. When I approach modernism it means breaking with a...