Page 58 - Studio International - February 1972

director's contract but also, and public galleries, the Kunstvereine may lead to trouble between such a `Realismus zwischen Revolution
more onerously, his modus operandi. were gradually restricted simply to group (if it gets the upper hand of und Machtergreifung' (Realism
For example, paragraph io of the organizing exhibitions (only the the committee) and the director, between Revolution and Seizure of
articles of the Westphalian Westphalian society still retains its who will brook no interference; Power), or 'Die Funktion der
Kunstverein of Münster, drawn up own extensive collection). Many aside from the fact that such Bildenden Kunst in unserer
in 1968, reads: 'The Committee German public galleries were in fact participation is only achievable at the Gesellschaft' (The Function of the
shall appoint a manager, who shall set up at the instance of the by now price of extreme dilettantism, it Fine Arts in our Society) mounted
be responsible to it and shall carry emancipated middle class in the would reduce the director to a mere by the Neue Gesellschaft für
on the business of the Society in belief that the foundation and administrator. Finally there may be Bildende Kunst in Berlin. q
accordance with the instructions and endowment of public art institutions conflict between the society and KLAUS HONNEF
authorizations of the Committee.' would lead to public subsidizing bodies, which will
In other words, the manager or acknowledgement of, and sanction gladly pull the financial props out
director is totally dependent on his for, the private activities of the from under a politically active
committee; he must, almost Kunstvereine. As a result of this Kunstverein, or one that is paving
invariably, discuss with it beforehand transubstantiation, however, many the way for an art that runs contrary
every detail of each exhibition and Kunstvereine have been to traditionally accepted views. All
its financing, must deliver the emasculated into simple societies of the societies receive subsidies,
project up to a vote, and then abide Friends of the Gallery, run in tandem whether indirectly, in the form of Dusseldorf
by the result. His relationship with with public institutions by the same free exhibition space, or directly,
his principals is therefore at the directors for the sake of the access and their withdrawal would mean Academy of Art
mercy of the irrational forces that they provide to non-public funds. liquidation. Most societies do
govern committees. Although their functions may augment their meagre budgets at The Academy of Art in Düsseldorf
The weak position of the director have altered radically since their the end of every year by publishing celebrates its 200th birthday in 1973.
stems largely from the historical and foundation, the social make-up of outstanding graphic works and This anniversary, though, is a
social conditions of 130 to 150 years the societies has not really changed. multiples and selling them to their fictitious one, because the present
ago, when the leading societies were Their membership is drawn membership on a greater or lesser Academy can be traced back to a
set up (only the Kestner-Gesellschaft predominantly from among profit margin, but the money so private foundation, founded by
is a twentieth-century foundation). professional people of the middle raised could never begin to replace Wilhelm Lambert Krahe. The
They were founded by the moneyed class-doctors, lawyers, civil lost subsidies. incentive came from the private
middle class which, after the servants and, increasingly, of Crisis has indeed, at least collection of the Elector Johann
temporary failure of the bourgeois students-and not from the working potentially, become the mark of the Wilhelm, who had formerly resided
revolution in Germany at the class. But since committee members Kunstvereine. Some have already in Düsseldorf and who is still known
beginning of the nineteenth century, are chosen for their local business come to grief, like the Berliner there affectionately as 'Jan Wellem'.
found itself excluded from positions standing, or for their political or Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Today, as during his lifetime,
of political influence, despite its financial influence, the committees which collapsed in 1969 over the most things begin with Jan Wellem
growing economic power; and it is (save in very exceptional cases) do issue of the participation demanded in Düsseldorf. The Academy of Art
probably also no coincidence that not reflect the social structure of the by its young left-wingers, or the did, in a way, although it was really
the Kunstvereine came into being membership they represent, and are Hamburg Kunstverein, whose born much later; Jan Wellem's art
just at the time when fundamentally little different from director steered too conservative a collection enhanced the former
bourgeois-revolutionary artists those of over a century ago. In some course. The Munich society had its fishing village on the banks of the
and intellectuals went in danger of cases, like the Württemberg subsidies from the Bavarian Rhine, giving it an aura of
their necks during the so-called Kunstverein of Stuttgart, there is a Ministry of Culture and the Munich cosmopolitanism and
persecution of the demagogues. further complicating factor in the city authorities, withdrawn because aestheticism.
Through the Kunstvereine the presence of local artists on the of the social criticism implicit in its Wilhelm Lambert Krahe and his
bourgeoisie, nonetheless eager to committees. Such people sometimes exhibition policy. The Ingoldstadt successor Johann Peter Langer
collaborate with the still-entrenched seek to influence the society's society's exhibitions also displeased intended to make the Jan Wellem
feudal aristocracy, took over what in affairs in their own interests, thus the town authorities, while the collection the basis for a teaching
times of untroubled aristocratic rule vitiating any independent cultural Hanover Kunstverein, in order to institute, to represent the visual arts
had been a duty of the nobility: the role it might have played. give the town a progressive image, of their time. Jan Wellem's second
role of patron. Since, however, the In these circumstances conflicts misguidedly assembled a successor, the Elector Karl Theodor,
middle class, with its strong streak are almost inevitable, and the flames spectacular show of foreign art and turned Krahe's private institute into
of rationalism, can hardly be are often fanned by the insistence on went down with DM200,000 of an official institution. In 1773 the
regarded as particularly art-minded, the social role of art, now advanced debts round its neck. present academy was officially
this unlikely role can doubtless be more pressingly by young artists and As long as the organizational proclaimed as 'Electoral Academy of
seen as a compensation for the left-inclined intellectuals in structure of the Kunstvereine Painting, Sculpture and
political influence it had been particular. Friction can arise, too, remains unchanged they will be Architecture'.
denied. Echoes of this situation can between the honorary, dogged by crisis; and yet these Originally only a privileged group
be detected in the 1831 articles of non-professional (and hence constant threats to their existence of people was admitted to the private
the Westphalian Kunstverein cautious and conservative) and independence provide the collection of the Elector Johann
(altered in 1968), which gave as the committee and the director who is motive impulse for their activities. Wilhelm, but Krahe students were
aim of the society 'to collect and concerned with advanced forms of For, at the moment, it is the allowed to do copying there. This
conserve old works of art in these artistic expression. Subject to a Kunstvereine, and not the torpid sufficed to attract artists from all over
times when long-honoured variety of social responsibilities and public galleries, which are the the world who enrolled as students
institutions are being broken up' filling a variety of social roles mainstays of the German art scene, in Krahe's Institute only in order to
(probably a reference to the -doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs- as some of their 1971 exhibitions gain admission to the collection. It
collections of the nobility). committee members are much more illustrate. Some are systematically was planned in addition to appoint
A number of Kunstvereine saw hesitant to break a lance for propagating the views of the leading artists of the time as
the formation of collections as their advanced art, particularly if it is contemporary artists through teaching members of the Institute,
main object; others, like the unfavourably received by the public, one-man shows-like the teaching whenever they stayed in
Rhineland and Westphalia society, than the director who is risking his Kunstverein of the Rhineland and Düsseldorf.
set out from the beginning to reputation and future much more Westphalia's exhibitions of Gilbert The attraction of the Academy
establish and promote contacts than they. Disagreement may & George and Emil Schumacher, the suddenly ended when, during the
between artists (in the case of spring up between the committee Westphalian society's of Hanne French Revolution, the former private
Düsseldorf, the artists of the and a critical and knowledgeable Darboven and Rainer Ruthenbeck, collection of Johann Wilhelm was
Academy there) and the middle section of the membership which the Arnulf Rainer and Robert evacuated to Munich, where it
class. However, as the function of wants to influence the Kunstverein's Graham shows in Hamburg, or remained and formed the nucleus of
collecting came to be taken over strategy and not just rubber-stamp those of Arroyo and Shusaku the Old Pinakothek. This was a
—towards the end of the nineteenth the committee's decisions—the Arakawa in Frankfurt; some mount loss from which Düsseldorf has
and the beginning of the twentieth watchwords here are participation exhibitions around a theme-like never completely recovered, though
century—by the lately-founded and democratization. This in turn the Württemberg Kunstverein's Munich gained a certain reputation