The Alma Band was a project of the artists Martin Kippenberger (1953 - 1997) and Albert Oehlen (*1954). Both met during their studies at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg and launched various joint art projects. In the process, they early developed the ironic-cynical gesture that was to characterize their work.
Martin Kippenberger is considered a representative of the Neue Wilde (New Wild Ones), who questioned the established concept of art and established a more human, accessible art through provocation, pretentiousness and irony. Well-known works by the German artist include Metro-Net and Zuerst die Füße.
Albert Oehlen, the older brother of artist Markus Oehlen, worked in multimedia with an emphasis on painting and is also considered to belong to the Neue Wilde and Neo-Expressionism.
The artists' musical approaches were oriented toward the New Wave movement and were characterized by improvisation, lo-fi, and irony. At the same time, Kippenberger and Oehlen did not see music as an independent art form, but as a means of expression in the context of all artistic modes of expression. Thus, music offered possibilities of physical and acoustic statement, performance, and exploitation of the moment that painting did not.
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