Page 40 - Studio International - February 1972

results, it is true; but it kept the local artists German phenomenon (although the same has come after him: Joseph Beuys, the 'sculptor'.
from starvation. Crises in the art schools were happened elsewhere too). Dealers who back Quite a few of the most interesting younger
covered by the press more enthusiastically, and unknown artists like to be able to offer artists were pupils of his, but naturally they
in greater detail, than those in the universities; collectors a 'development', i.e. a rise in value, exercise what G. B. Shaw, daring to criticize
and avant-garde galleries could go on for years, at least every two years. There is to my Shakespeare, once called 'legitimate self-
showing exactly what they wanted to show, and knowledge no country where there has been defence'. Without attempting to go into the
still stay in business. In a word : there may be so much debate over 'Art as Merchandise', art subject of Beuys's influence in detail, one can
older artists in Germany who are in need, but as a consumer article, as there has in West detect two constants in the work of the younger
young artists, even those who can not yet live on Germany and German-speaking Switzerland. generation. In the wake of the monstrous
their own artistic output, have no need to take a The young artists have become correspondingly irrationalism of the Nazis all German
job outside art, let alone go without work. And alert, critical, and unsure of themselves; but in intellectuals adopted a policy of anti-emotional
the opportunities to exhibit are better than ever order to find their feet they need nothing so objectivity (I don't believe in the idea of
before; thirty exhibition centres and a hundred much as time and peace and quiet. Any excess is national character, but if there is such a thing,
and fifty private galleries feel obliged by the permitted, except one : that of taking time to then English understatement, say, is matched by
atmosphere of competition to have an opening think. German overstatement); Beuys restored to
every month; and, what is more, there are more This connects with two further essential artists their confidence in subjective freedom.
than ten annual survey exhibitions, the so-called factors, one artistic and one social. The artistic Art is no longer the sum of its productions; the
art fairs. one first. At one time artists were inhibited by productions are stages in an active process, and
This very rough outline of the present the crushing weight of the art of other countries, this active process is that of being human.
material boom situation gives in itself some hint especially that of the stylistic dictatorship Furthermore, Beuys not only took issue with the
of the difficult psychological position in which exercised by the great Americans; now the scientific, positivist view of the world (which is
young artists find themselves. I certainly do not standards are set by a slightly senior generation where his universal importance lies) but also
share the optimistic view, promoted of painters who are now about forty years old. gave new life to what was once best in German
disingenuously in every period of history, that If you use a process of objective dematerialization culture; something that had of course been
every activity of even the remotest interest should to evoke in the beholder a subjective plane of ruined under the Nazis. A constant in German
get a showing, the proof being the many totally concentration, you are plagiarizing Zero. If you intellectual history, from Luther and Diirer by
uninteresting things that are shown at the same employ a painterly sensibility—something that way of Mozart, Goethe and Novalis to Einstein
time. History teaches us that every century so younger artists like Lambert Maria and Klee, had been the attainment, by the most
far has overlooked one significant individual or Wintersberger, Dieter Krieg or Bernd Koberling rational but also the most economical means, of
another; and the belief that we are in some way were clearly born with—to establish the disparity a maximum of awareness transcending palpable
better is sheer arrogance. But aside from these between the eye and the object, then you are reality. The artists whose objectives I shall be
hypothetical exceptions, the problem generally trespassing on the terrain staked out by Gotthard trying to elucidate have all broken with Beuys,
is not getting your first exhibition but keeping Graubner, Konrad Klaphek and Gerd Richter. and would be less interesting if they had not;
going. And it is as a result of this that young Actions and demonstrations, even signed with but many of them studied under him. One
artists have fallen prey to an unprecedented the names of Schult, Ulrichs or Weh, cannot thing they all have in common is the faculty of
compulsion to produce. Museum retrospectives escape from the massive shadow of the using formal economy, and easily verifiable
of artists not yet thirty, who have done more than Happening tradition as imported by Wolf methods, to liberate large fields of association,
half the work for a mammoth show in six Vostell. As sculpture in the traditional sense has and thereby to seek a maximum of tension
months—and it looks like it—are very much a always been something of a poor relation in between irrational effect ('electricity') and
3 4 5

3 Palermo Germany since Tilman Riemenschneider had rational 'wiring'.
Freppenhaus 5970
Gallery Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf his hands cut off in the Peasant Rebellion in However, the third point of Beuys's
1525, a newcomer like Ansgar Nierhoff has a programme, that of living art as a way of life
4 Palermo
Positiv / negativ Wandmalerei 1971 harder time of it even than other young artists : and as a model to others, is a thing of the past.
Gallery Heiner Friedrich, Munich he has first to establish his position with respect For complex historical reasons that cannot he
to an intermediate generation which has gained gone into here, Germany has always been
5 W. Knoebel
Projektion 5970 international prizes but no international exceptionally sensitive to crises; and there is a
6 Ulrich Rückriem recognition. world-wide crisis which springs from the fact
Eisenlatten, 5 Zustände 1971 And then there is the figure who first that, where relationships are unfathomable,
7 K. Rinke attracted international attention to the German optical perception cannot continue to be passed
Die Quelle 7 Risser Der Zeitstand (dass) Die art world, and who has become father-figure, off as an adequate interpretation. This crisis
Senkrechte 5969 casting his long shadow over all those who have found expression in Germany, after the
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