Page 39 - Studio International - February 1972

Young artists Ohne Titel (OB—100) 1967
Peter Roehr
in Germany Paper on pasteboard 32 X 32 cm
2 Installation shot of Peter Roehr at the
'Exhibition — Exhibition' in Frankfurt 1966-7
Georg Jappe

It has never been so easy as it is today to be a Republic is basically not a matter for the mushrooms. In 1960 there were barely five
young artist in Germany. And it has never been national government but for the Lander, and modern galleries in Cologne; in 1970 there were
so difficult. Easy materially, difficult spiritually. above all for the municipal authorities. And the nearly fifty. At the last Bundestag elections the
The Expressionists before the First World War cities, so rapidly and so facelessly rebuilt, SPD in Cologne campaigned not only on its
simply starved. The Bauhaus in the 192os was a needed nothing so sorely as they needed an social record but also on its cultural record, with
wonderful thing, but outside the Bauhaus itself image. Berlin was isolated, and the distinction art in the forefront. Cologne is the instance that
nobody knew a thing about it. The whole Nazi between metropolis and provinces no longer springs most readily to mind because the
campaign against 'degenerate art' was only existed; so every city had hopes of becoming a competition between the German cities has led
possible because the modern avant garde was cultural metropolis. And in an optically oriented each to carve out a speciality for itself. Thus
totally isolated, and had no contact, let alone age art just fitted the bill. The museums, which Frankfurt is the publishing city, Hamburg the
common ground, with the people at large. After had hitherto stuck to safe classics, began to put newspaper city, Berlin the theatre city, etc.;
the total destruction of German art by Fascism, on exhibitions of contemporary artists; and, and between Cologne, the largest town in the
war and exile, a German artist in the I95os had after the great names from abroad had all had Rhineland, and Düsseldorf, the capital of the
only one chance of getting anywhere : emigrating their turn, the museum directors, whose art- Land of North-Rhine-Westphalia, there has
to Paris. The first people to establish an historical training had made them the ultimate been a costly and, as far as art is concerned,
international foothold in Germany were the authorities on the validity of works of art, highly stimulating rivalry as to which is to be
members of Group Zero, in Dusseldorf in about emblazoned the word 'Experiment' on their the metropolis of art. Very roughly one can say
I960, thanks to their contacts with similar Zero banner. And they were not fighting for a lost that the artists congregate in Düsseldorf, the
groups in Holland and Italy and with the cause : the eight museums in Cologne had dealers in Cologne; but there are important
Nouveaux Réalistes in Paris —and this foothold between them 1,200,000 visitors in 1970, more exhibitions in north and south Germany as
was just exactly as big as the pocket- than the visitors to the zoo, more than the radio well.
handkerchief-sized Galerie Schmela. listeners and TV viewers, a third more than the One consequence of this receptive climate
In the course of the I96os, however, the total population : and the municipal assembly was that local authorities made over
German art scene underwent a total revolution. fixed the budget accordingly. condemned houses or factories as studios, or
There were many causes for this. Politically the The physical hunger of a devastated country offered young artists jobs in art schools even
Federal Republic was oriented towards America, was succeeded by the hunger for travel, the without the necessary diplomas, and private
and the authorities were dazzled by the desire to see other countries; then, from the industry gave them jobs in advertising. The
victorious progress of Pop art. The crowds mid-1960s onwards, came the hunger for law which said that 2 per cent of the cost of each
came flocking in; it was the second, the social culture. This meant, among other things, that public building project was to be spent on
revolution of modernism. Culture in the Federal collectors large and small sprang up like artistic commissions had some fairly pathetic
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