Page 56 - Studio International - February 1972

centre on opening up specific rich—big galleries and big collectors gesang, Bettina von Arnim. From fairy-tale. It would be fair to say
production procedures and applying all seem to be near Cologne—the magazine photos, headlines from that the myth of Munich still lives
them to social problems. It is divided city struggles for existence scandal-sheets and newspaper on, and that to those who live there
between all these various forces that like a poor relation. When Ian reports they mount objections it is not only die heimliche Hauptstadt,
Uecker mediates with his impartial Colverson and Denis Masi, the criticizing the age. Gerd Winner, who the secret capital, but also the cultural
and conciliating art; he it is, too, highly gifted London printers, does most of his prints in London, capital of the country.
who maintains the contacts with the showed their Berlin Suite, a series of cuts up and analyses cars and other But then it always was, or at least
Ruhr first made in the Zero period. photomontages on silk screen, at the industrial idols of a society fixed on was, in comparison with the upstart
He last exhibited in a joint show Galerie Poll, they were a little consuming industrial things. capital of Prussia, the one German
with the unobtrusive but hard- disappointed that the exhibition was There are the happening- city with an international reputation
working Rolf Jönes. Another bridge not sold out on opening day. That and arte-povera —artists around the in artistic matters. It was regarded
between Rhineland and Ruhr is `they-sell-everything-on-one-night- Galerie René Block, Vostell, as a centre for art education second
provided by Adolf Luther, who in Germany' myth might have come Hödicke, K. P. Brehmer. In other only to Paris. German movements
lives in Krefeld and, like Reusch true had they done a Cologne Suite. words arts behave no less began there first, and to ambitious
and Gonschior, is retained by the Berlin dealers like Poll have to go to pluralistically in Berlin than artists from the east, like Kandinsky,
Galerie 'm' in Bochum. The work the Cologne Fair first to outsell a anywhere else. Sculptors of the elder Jawlensky and Werefkin, it was the
of this gallery, which has developed Berlin Suite. generation like Hans Uhlmann and logical place to go to establish a
into one of the most interesting in On the other hand, Wolf Vostell, Bernhard Heiliger contrast with reputation. And then there were the
the region, is greatly assisted by the ('Father of the German Happening'), younger ones like Haro Jacob, who art collections and the proud
Art-Historical Institute of the Ruhr left Cologne and settled on the River opened the plastic age in Berlin with tradition of art historical scholarship
University in Bochum—the only Spree because Berlin, as he claimed, realistic figures of gigantic women. which made Munich a city the equal
such institute in Germany to is a much better city to work in. There are Surrealists (like Trökes, of other great European artistic
concern itself intensively with Berlin might be no place for art Ackermann, Heinrich Richter) and capitals, Paris included.
present-day artistic problems. dealing, it is not even a city which New Constructivists (like Wolfgang All that is past. The collections
Cologne lies somewhat on the seems very fond of the fine arts: but Ludwig and Paul Uwe Dreyer). are still there, of course, still second
edge of all this activity. The it is and always has been an artists' There are outsiders like Friedrich to none, but as far as contemporary,
departure of Vostell to Berlin city. It has also always been a Schröder-Sonnenster, an post-war art is concerned the
deprived the city of its most realistic city. Here one lived, as one independent figure, now 8o or 85 importance of the Bavarian capital
spectacular artistic personality but still lives, much closer to reality than (nobody knows), who has brought to has waned as the flow of money has
there remain a number of younger elsewhere in Germany. This applies German art the naivety of drawings drifted north, to find a final resting
artists, Nierhoff, Wintersberger, to the political situation, as the two by children and lunatics, as Dubuffet place around the Rhine and the
Boers and Buthe, as well as Schultze spheres of influence of the post-war did to French art. There are puzzle- Ruhr. For evidence of this you need
and Wewerka, who are forging their world meet directly, and applies painters like Otmar Alt, one of the go no further than the annual
own paths. Pride of place at the equally to the arts. most successful Berliners, Pop artists Summer exhibition of Munich
moment, however, must doubtless Shortly after World War One like Werner Berges and naturalists artists in the building half occupied
go to the musicians who, with photo-montage was 'found' in Berlin of rather a scientific pattern like by the Neue Pinakothek. It annually
Stockhausen and Kagel, have gained by Dadaists. The method was typical Gernot Bubenik. There are even bears comparison with the Summer
the city an avant-garde image. for this city. You took a piece of social realists (Jürgen Waller, for exhibition in Burlington House. It is
The 'Strategy Get Arts' exhibition documented reality, cut it and put it instance, a much better painter than academic and dull. Only Munich's
at Edinburgh in 1970 provided a together again. The new most of those I have seen from East past, which it so diligently preserves,
first over-all insight into artistic juxtapositions showed the reality Berlin). They have nothing in can compete with Munich's past.
activity on the Rhine and Ruhr; this behind the reality, revealed the common but Berlin, and a certain Artists whose work is original and
did indeed concentrate on social, political or human sense of reality. In Düsseldorf, on the interesting are in the minority
Düsseldorf, but artists from the area background, pointed to things other hand, the abstractionists—the therefore, and it is significant that
around the city were also represented. lurking behind outward Zero school-have developed better they are the kind of people who seem
From July to September 1972 the appearances. Hannah Hoech, now than realists. to thrive on loneliness and
Folkwang Museum will celebrate its 82, one of the first Dadaists, still Bonn, the new capital on the independence; men like Reimer
fiftieth anniversary with a show in lives and works in Berlin, as does Rhine, has done a lot to stimulate Jochims who has been going his own
the exhibition rooms of the largest Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, the last of Berlin art-life by an artists-in- way for years and, underestimated
park in the Ruhr area, the Gruga the great German Expressionists and residence programme, originally at home and little known abroad, has
in Essen, which will investigate and one of the founders of 'Die Brücke'. started by the American Ford proved impervious to passing fashion
elucidate this artistic scene. To be Schmidt-Rottluff, aged 87, donated Foundation. Artists like William and fancy.
called `Szene Rhein Ruhr '72', it everything he owned—not only his Scott, Emilio Vedova, Alex Colville, At risk of repeating the obvious,
will cover the fine arts, architecture, own paintings but also many by Piero Dorazio, Peter Sedgley, Jorge it must be said that Munich is the
music, films and literature. It will be Heckel, Kirchner, Otto Mueller— Castillo, Kenneth Armitage and Olympic city and that 1972 is the
aimed at a new public, the people who to the City of Berlin, and also built George Rickey have been in Berlin; Olympic year. Because of the Federal
live in the area, and so will take account the Brücke Museum, demonstrating most of them returned twice or more law which obliges architects to
of the suggestions for improving the once again that Berlin depends more or even stayed-like Akrithakis, devote a certain percentage of public
life and communication structure of on its artists than on dealers, rich Xenakis, Remotti, Kotik. 'I like building budgets to artistic projects
the region which artists have made, collectors or Kunstvereine. There Berlin', Remotti, the Roman sculptor, Munich now finds itself in a
or are already in a position to are two Kunstvereine, one left-wing said 'because dreamers here are close quandary. The building costs, not
implement. q syndicate sympathizing with the art to reality and realists near fantasy'. only of the Olympic buildings
DIETER HONISCH of the German Democratic Republic, In fact, this might be a formula for themselves, but of the Underground
and one right-wing union, Berlin as an artists' city, if there is a and new highway systems which are
sympathizing with more or less formula at all. q being created at the same time, are,
provincial art and art-life. They both HEINZ OHFF of course, astronomical, as are the
mean next to nothing to living art monies which now have to be
and artists. devoted to art. What to do ? What
Although the Berlin has been done ? During the last year
photomontage has become rare in its the city has become, without
West Berlin classic style, the principle of montage exaggeration, the laughing stock of
is frequently used; it is a continuous the country in its well-meaning
There are two centres of the so- thread in Berlin painting and attempts to apportion its art budget
called fine arts in Western Germany graphics. The Berlin artists overlay Munich fairly. While it is to the city's credit
today: the Rhineland with Cologne, rather than compose; they like to see that it resisted hare-brained schemes
Düsseldorf and surrounding things as they are but don't overlook Wassily Kandinsky remembered put forward, especially by the Earth-
industrial areas (which might be what hides beneath. in his autobiography that when he artists, it remains to be seen whether
considered one big city) and the There are the 'Critical Realists' first came to Munich the city, with those it has commissioned to realize
western part of Berlin. But while the like Hans-Jürgen Diehl, Wolfgang its blue trams, yellow pillar boxes their flashes of inspiration in
Rhenish conurbation can be called Petrick, Peter Sorge, Klaus Vogel- and view of the Alps, seemed like a forecourts and on facades will meet