There is a sense of experimentation simmering within the exhibition space of Young and Wild?, the Ashmolean’s retrospective on 1980s Germany’s Neo-Expressionist movement. The connection between the giddy possibility that characterised Germany’s political landscape at the time with that of their Weimar predecessors of decades prior is clearly felt. Divided into two halves, the first exploring the works of the more established artists of the ‘Junge Wilde’ and the second dedicated to its emerging younger set, the mood throughout is one of play, a persistent impulse to see what one can get away with.

In some cases that experimental feel is down to necessity, as in the series of six untitled ‘Standart’ prints from A.R. Penck that greet you on entry. Artists’ materials being scarce, Penck incorporates salvaged everyday materials; aluminium, wax, foil, and printed paper. The result is subdued but nonetheless eclectic – hazy dappling of wax scatter across one, while on another a printed advertisement peeks out from beneath thick grey linework. These are brought together by a consistent iconography of Xs and intersecting blocks, characteristic of the folk pictorial ‘Standart’ alphabet Penck developed in the 1960s.

In The Problems of England, created while Penck was living in London and Ireland, the limbs of his iconic stick figures continually elongate and retract, shooting across the length of the canvas with a furious dynamism to convey the tensions at the height of the Troubles. It reads like a graffiti Guernica, bright primary colours loosely daubed as though in a frenzy. By contrast, the saturated vibrancy of Berlin Suite is more measured and deliberate, with deep reds, blues, greens and cyans recalling the lights of a nightclub. The elation and liberation of life beyond the fall of the Berlin Wall is palpable.

Markus Lüpertz’ Landscape series is also notable for its use of heightened colour but to a more subtly disorienting effect. The starkness of his leafless trees and sparse foliage is offset by deliberately artificial-looking tints of deep red, royal blue, and saturated unnatural greens. The natural world is treated with a quiet unease that contrasts nicely with the more bombastic tone of some of the surrounding works.

Georg Baselitz’ etching series based on Arkady Plastov’s 1942 work, A Fascist Flew Past, line the far wall of the gallery space. Baselitz isolates the detail of a young boy’s body in the foreground and iterates it many times over, the etching’s clean lines standing alone then deepened in black and red aquatint, thrown into relief and then obscured, in his original posture and rotated upright. This multiplicity encourages the viewer to focus on form, but it also grants the figure the dignity of being a subject in himself, rather than merely the side-detail of a senseless conflict.

The second half of the exhibition feels more hastily assembled in comparison; in a way this rings true to the explosion of contrasting styles that characterised the Neo-Expressionist’s younger generation, but the collection of 5 prints from a portfolio of 13 artists’ graphic works feels somewhat disjointed. With only 5 pieces it struggles to capture the variety that portfolio promises, and with Elvira Bach and Ina Barfuss both receiving more comprehensive displays elsewhere, Peter Bommels, Werner Buttner and Martin Kippenberger feel oddly relegated.

I appreciated the playful mixture of the bold and coquettish in Bach’s larger pieces; deep pinks turquoises and reds convey an easy eroticism. But after such an emphasis on the experimental possibilities of form and material beforehand I found it difficult to be as enthused about her simpler pastel works, which are charmingly hedonistic but not much beyond.

Conversely, Barfuss’ display of untitled gouache works instantly caught my eye; elongated faces undulate into bodies, geometric shapes, abstracted trees and architectural spirals, her use of colour veering from bright saturated linework to eerie accent.

Rainer Petting and his partner Salomé’s works stand side by side; Portrait of Shaun, Petting’s delicately rendered and intimate triptych of etchings, is certainly more conventional in form that anything else on display, but in a way that gives this section a welcome grounding force. Salomé’s self portrait, Red Dots, is the promotional image for the exhibition, and it’s easy to see why – the red of his lip accenting that of his polka dot underwear, Salomé stands louche, languid and unapologetic, reflected in the relaxed quality of the brushwork.

His accompanying pieces are less overt but just as striking; the clean, crisp line work of Japan II, depicting kabuki performers during Salomé’s stay in the country, is minimal but still pops with punkish vibrancy. In Shower III’s dreamy pastels and gouache, soft pinks, greens and blues contrast but never jar, running together like the commingling of bodies beneath the showerhead, becoming almost liquid.

In many respects, Young and Wild? reflects the generative chaos of the movement it documents. Much like trying to keep up with several equally fascinating conversations at once, you’ll certainly leave entertained, but there remains a lingering feeling of what might have been gained by focusing on one.