Page 60 - Studio International - February 1972

check the result immediately, and Collectors dealer Alfred Schmela by an publications, which proves that
to erase and re-record when a first industrial patron to enable the Beck is adept at making use of
attempt is unsuccessful. The The Rhineland is not only a central Krefeld museum to add a gigantic economic factors.
completed tapes can then be sold region for artists and gallery Beuys object (TV set with There are a number of
through established art trade owners; along the Rhine and Ruhr video-recorder and wooden shelf well-established collectors amongst
channels. The price of each tape is can also be found the most potent with objets trouves) to its collection. the artists of the Rhineland. Their
comparable to that of other works German private collectors. Even In contrast to the 'open collection' collections are built up through
by the same artist. The duration of ten or twenty years ago the buying of of the Darmstadt manufacturer artists exchanging their works and
those so far on sale varies between works of art was a privilege enjoyed Ströher, who resold a number of by buying from art-dealers with
one and sixteen minutes. An by industrialists, publishers and Pop Art works, Ludwig's whom they are friendly. The
art-loving public must thus have to bankers; now the acquisition of collection is 'closed' : it is the basis Düsseldorf painter Konrad
come to terms with the fact that art twentieth-century art has become a for new acquisitions, not for barter. Klapheck keeps quiet about his
no longer exists only in the form of hobby of the so-called free While the Ludwig collection has acquisitions —only occasionally does
pictures on a wall, pieces of sculpture, professions. grown from an involvement with one or other of his pictures appear
but also as video tapes which anyone The educated, prosperous middle classical modernism, the Hack in any major exhibition, although he
will be able to play on a television class is the social stratum which collection (Cologne) was based on owns important Surrealist works.
set, not unlike records on a record supplies most collectors. Doctors, the traditional ties of its creator with Apart from these hidden treasures
player. lawyers, architects, advertising Germany's late Gothic period. This there exist artists' collections, items
Apart from private collectors, executives and junior managers in homage to a fertile historic art epoch from which are shown in various
some leading contemporary museums industry show their attitude was contrasted by the commitment exhibitions. Two years ago the old
have acquired video equipment to towards art in various ways. In most to classical modernism. Hack owns Düsseldorf art museum held an
present tapes as part of their normal cases collecting begins at the age of one of the most important collections exhibition under the title
exhibitions. These include Paul 30-35, when the eye has been trained of Constructivists (Popova, `Düsseldorf artists collect', which
Wember's Kaiser Wilhelm Museum and the solid financial basis has been Malevich, Lissitzky, Moholy Nagy, did not arouse much interest but
in Krefeld, the Stedelijk Museum consolidated, and individual taste is Larionoff, Mondrian, Doesburg). was indicative of what established
in Amsterdam and the Stedelijk often subordinate to concrete The collection of the Düsseldorf artists appreciate in the work of their
van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven investment considerations. banker Forberg, which comprises colleagues. Yves Klein and Fontana
under the direction of Jan Leering. The Düsseldorf Kunsthalle about 100 objects, is characteristic seemed to have particular meaning
Schum himself has also organized exhibited this summer a selection of a friend and patron of the arts for the younger generation.
video exhibition 'groups' in Italy from collections of members of who has always been actively Gotthard Graubner, the sensitive
(Galleria Sperone, Turin), Holland `free professions', which indicated integrated into the Rhineland painter of cushions, collects
(Art and Project, Amsterdam), the following trends : little risk-taking cultural life. Forberg's preferences pictures and objects by Beuys,
Belgium (Galerie MTL, Brussels) courage or support for progressive also concentrate on classical Goller, Herbin, Leger, Kolar. It is
and West Germany. anti-art, rather a definite status modernism right through to abstract typical of him that his exhibition
So far, Gerry Schum's is the concern combined with preference art. American art of the Sixties ensemble contained a landscape by
only gallery to produce video tapes. for German Expressionism (mainly would not be at home in a collection Caspar David Friedrich obtained on
New York's Leo Castelli Gallery Nolde, Feininger, Schmidt-Rottluff) which-according to a description loan from the Düsseldorf
alone is moving in a somewhat and for the Ecole de Paris. This by Werner Schmalenbach-appears Kunstmuseum. The exhibition
comparable direction but restricts applies mainly to middle generation as 'a celebration of the atmosphere made it clear that Günther Uecker
itself to the use of film material and collectors. Younger collectors show and style of life'. The collection is the most enthusiastic collector of
art documentations, of a kind a weakness for the constructivist centres on the paintings of both contemporary art. His collection is
foreign to Gerry Schum's concepts trend, for the Zero-representatives groups of the Ecole de Paris, with now worth millions of DM, because
since his ideas centre on recording Piene, Mack and Uecker and for Picasso, Leger and Laurens, with it contains not only works by pop
the artistic process in action. Pop Art. Multiples and originals of Estève, Poliakoff, de Stael, and artists and Zero friends, but also
It is these recordings alone which the art market magnet, Beuys, are Viera da Silva. In spite of a excellent works of classical
give existence to the flying exercises strongly represented. Dieter Rot, predominance of works of the modernism.
of the Italian de Dominicis, the whose spice objects recently fetched nineteen-fifties this collection is not There are few collectors of
creation of circles by Ulrich astronomical prices in the Düsseldorf one-sided—it includes works by contemporary art who follow a real
Rückriem or the use of water as an Eat-Art Gallery (up to DM100,000), German Expressionists, as well as programme. One of them is Dr
instrument of art by Klaus Rinke of has also pushed well ahead. The Chadwick, Nicholson and Tobey. Reiner Speck of Cologne, who owns
Düsseldorf. For Rinke's particular newest art forms are exclusively One could call the evaluation of drawings, pictures and objects by
form of expression Schum's method discussed between the artists colour as the criterion for artistic Walter de Maria, Panamarenko,
is of particular importance, since the themselves, gallery owners, critics quality in painting the guiding Arnulf Rainer, Rot and Twombly,
significance of his ideas on the and museum people; being insiders, principle of this collection. apart from the already obligatory
handling of water is almost entirely it is natural that they react more One of the examples of how a works by Beuys. Neither
outside the scope of the conventional quickly than the consumer-oriented collector can misuse commercial popular-decorative aspects nor
museum. art buyer. opportunities of his time is the investment and playing-safe
Klaus Rinke's mode of expression The collection of the Aachen so-called Pop collection of the considerations have been determining
is only one example of the work done chocolate manufacturer Herr Düsseldorf lawyer Beck, which was factors in the building up of this
by video artists. Taken as a whole, Ludwig enjoys international renown. first exhibited at the Bonn collection. Nor does the Schniewind
these intentions focus on the Despite the economic crisis it grows Landesmuseum two years ago. This collection, at Neviges, present itself
process of becoming aware of the steadily and is constantly being is a collection of graphic art and as a conglomeration of great names
fact that man also contains within added to. New acquisitions are multiples which has conformed with and styles, but as a unity, formed
himself non-material and bought almost every month —recently, the spectacular boom for Pop Art over decades and keeping pace with
non-rational elements. Video works by Twombly, Bruce and is almost completely devoid of the development of art. There is
artists tacitly imply in their actions Nauman, Kienholz and Heerich. personal touch. The only nothing unrelated in this collection.
that every individual, mindful of the The focal point of these new recognizable theme in this Picasso, Braque, Beckmann, Bacon,
complexity of his makeup, should acquisitions, which have been accumulation of popular Fontana, Yves Klein (but also
forcefully state the demands incorporated in the loan-section of mass-produced art is a stringing Lichtenstein, Raysse, Segal and
necessary to fulfil this. q the Cologne Wallraf-Richartz- together of banal individual subjects Pistoletto) were bought at a time
KLAUS U. REINKE Museum, is a group of Beuys objects like automobiles, cups, shoes, faces when their market value was by no
(drawings, collages, creations in fat —iconographic identities, joined means sufficiently assured to
[Video tapes of the following artists are and felt, plastic objects), which were together by accident (the eliminate risk. This collection in
obtainable from Schum's: Baldessari, sold to the Aachen collector by the generalizing trend of Pop Art) particular represents an aesthetic
Brouwn, Buren, de Dominicis, Dibbets, standard which has contributed to
Rinke, Ruckriem, Weiner, Beuys, former art critic and present art rather than by the collector's
Gilbert & George, Merz, and dealer Hans Strelow after his return discerning eye. A big group of the the evolution of art and which lifts
Ruthenbeck. Each video tape is from New York. The price was not graphic works of the collection, a collection above the function of
accompanied by a signed and numbered revealed, but it can be assumed that particularly those of German origin, merely confirming the traditional
certificate. Prices range from DM580 it came close to the approximate sum determine the choice of the art or serving as a social fetish. q
to DM9800.] of DM100,000 given to the art clubs' inexpensive annual CHRISTIAN HERCHENRÖDER