Page 36 - Studio International - October 1970

posed by his friend Dieter Schönbach, a when it is set in motion by a touch or a Years went by without new kinetic initiatives;
`breathing stage space' which this year has current of air. Another exceptional case is but the latest generation of artists has pro-
led, much to the alarm of the public, to a Hermann Goepfert (born 1926), an artist duced a number of remarkable experiments,
nine-metre-long, intermittently swelling who was losely connected to Zero, and made mostly based on electronics and photo-
Breath Wall on a government office building what he called 'reflector pictures', in which electric cells. The results have something of the
at Recklinghausen in the Ruhr. This is the the medium is light, captured by hanging an discotheque about them, as with the lavish
climax of Weseler's work on breathing objects aluminium spiral in front of a metal reflector, light-and-gramophone combinations of Klaus
so far. He has also placed electric mechanisms producing a wave-form effect when the spiral Geldmacher (born 1940). Other artists are
inside animal skins; these lift the fur in a is set in motion with the hand (or, occasion- showing development potential. Bernd Damke
steady but occasionally sharply interrupted ally, by a draught). Goepfert himself described (born 1939) has a flight of ten steps each of
breathing movement, and in an unearthly these wave forms as kinetic. In 1961 he made a which causes a coloured wooden strip to light
total silence. Thus a dog's skin in a child's true kinetic object, the Optophonium, a large up on the wall. The Transformation Light
cot, a sea urchin on a table, are made to mechanism (almost two metres by three) in Object, by Uwe-Yorg Schlüter (born 1941), is
breathe; or a massive environmental group of which the electronic impulses from a magnetic an open box, 3.5 metres long, with a control
mud-dwelling creatures slowly stifles in a tape gave simultaneous signals to a loud- board with buttons corresponding to the
museum-like mansion. Weseler discovered the speaker and a light-source. The light was notes in a musical scale. These govern the
expressive power of organic rhythm: a rapid conveyed, by means of vibrating aluminium- endlessly varied pattern of light on the floor
shaking of the skin is interpreted as laughter, foil sheets, panes of glass, spirals and balls, to projected from a complicated network of tiny
a slow and caressing one as erotic, an irregu- a screen. In 1962 he built a rotating reflector lights on the ceiling. The intensity of the light
lar, convulsive one as death-throes. He has picture with an automatically controlled varies with the volume of musical sound.
also established that when the rhythm of the light supply, and he has sometimes placed When there is smoke in the air the variable
piece is made to match that of human kinetic 'reflectors' in front of aluminium light sources become visible as pillars of
breathing, the result is an impulse to meditate. mirrors. In 1965 he designed for the Federal coloured light. Jörg Heydemann (born 1941)
One more discovery: the placing of the German Garden Exhibition a Light Garden of has invented self-propelling oval wheels,
`organic kinetic object' is crucial to its asso- shimmering, shivering 'wall membranes'. about a metre high, made of polyester. They
ciative effect. Thus, a breathing pelt hung on Günter Haese (born 1924) builds sensitive are hollow, and battery-driven motors run on
a wall is seen as an abstract relief, or at best radar-like structures of filigree-thin watch tracks inside them, serving at the same time
as an exotic surreal object. On an angular parts; they tremble at the slightest breath of as weights to keep them upright. They are
projection, it looks as if about to take flight; air, and this gives many of them an ironically variously programmed and frequently lurch
in a corner, it seems to lie in wait; and against psychological effect. Ed Sommer (born 1932) into each other; the amused spectators are
human skin, it arouses horror, like a can- sometimes allows his transparent thermo- reminded of a motor-racetrack. Dieter Hacker
cerous growth. The importance of location in plastically buckled plexiglass sculptures to (born 1942) started out in 1965 with a relief
kineticism here receives an entirely new hang free from the ceiling. Arnulf of boxes full of peppermints which he caused
definition. Weseler sees his objects as 'meta- Hoffmann (born 1935) invents non-auto- to be eaten by mice and men. Then he turned
phors of parasitical growth, or captivity (in a matic 'pendulum sculptures'. And Rolf to tennis balls, running like experimental mice
cage), or violent usurpation (in a cot)'. He Glasmeier (born 1945) regards his Depart- through a cage-like relief structure; then to a
sees his own position thus: 'After a machine ment Store Objects and Paper Roll Holders, whose ballet of coloured balls on a jet of air; and
kineticism, which derives from Tinguely, and catches can be adjusted by hand, as kinetic. finally to balls which are half white and half
a light kineticism, discovered by Schöffer and What Zero pursued systematically—kinetic- black, with each side differently weighted,
carried perhaps to its highest point by Le ism as an intensification of effect—other artists and which move in an unexpectedly halting
Parc, I see myself at the beginning of an did incidentally. Op artists, for instance, way which prefigures Heydemann's wheels.
organic kineticism which finds its inspiration created shifting moire effects with superposed The most promising talent is Caspar Tropp
and its stimulus in organic nature, in the line patterns; but this use of literal movement (born 1935), a physicist who has only recently
animal kingdom.' remained exceptional. One artist in the group turned to kinetic art. His aim is cunning simpli-
Alongside these great individualists there are centred on Zero, the light sculptor Adolf city. Eight black Butterflies, pairs of hinged
a few quiet figures, such as Siegfried Albrecht Luther (born 1912), achieved a remarkable flaps, black on the outside (when closed), and
(born 1915) and Marta Hoepffner (born effect by causing the distorting mirrors in his coloured on the inside, perch on 50-centimetre-
1912) . Albrecht's `skiachromatic composi- wall reliefs to revolve and tilt, so that the high antennae. The warmth of an electric lamp
tions' (1961 onwards) are light boxes half a whole room seemed to reel. Between 1964 and straightens a spiral spring in each one, and the
metre high. Behind a matte translucent pane, 1968 Hartmut &ohm (born 1938) built a wings open, thus switching off the electric
coloured scraps of paper are lit from below by number of reliefs based on a rotating disc lamp, which then cools, closing the wings and
an electric lamp and move in the warm up- studded with magnets, above which there re-starting the cycle. Constantly changing
draught which rises from it. The resulting was a dense network of little metal or plastic rhythms are produced, and in a cold or dark
coloured shadows, which look as if seen under magnetic plates which tipped back and forth, room the movement is slower than it is in the
water, are comparable to those of the Brazilian separately and irregularly, within a regular open. In another work forty-two orange balls,
artist Palatnik. Hoepffner's `variochromatic overall structure. Utz Kampmann (born hanging on nylon threads, can be moved sep-
light objects' are boxes in which coloured 1935), who usually works with plain coloured arately up and down by operating a switch-
cellophane strips rotate in front of a partly cubes, exhibited in 1968 an electronic board, thus producing an overall pattern. One
masked lamp; the effect is like that of micro- `machine sculpture' based on a programmed of Tropp's earliest works is particularly fasci-
photographs of crystals. sequence of colours. Waki Zöllner (born 1935) nating: the Nofretete of 1968. Behind a cloudy
In a number of borderline cases, artists regard slowly melted blocks ofice to produce abstract, glass pane there is a photograph of the
themselves as kineticists although strictly Arp-like sculptures; he has plexiglass bridges Egyptian bust of Queen Nefertiti; behind
speaking they are not. Siegfried Cremer (born on to which the spectators may push a ball, as that again, a light in a tube. The beam of
1929) participated in `Bewogen Beweging' ; hard as they like; the constant, thwarted light moves around, never showing more of the
he makes angular antenna-like structures out expectation that the ball will overrun the end picture than a seven-centimetre circle. Very,
of steel wire, with little bulges acting as of the track and bounce off provides a re- very slowly the profile of the Egyptian queen
weights to control the movement of the piece markable kinetic interest. takes shape in the spectator's mind.