Contemporary (1988) video scene in the Rhineland
In
Cologne, Video Art has a very specific and independent development.
This is due primarily to its relationship with new music which had its
centre at the Studio for Electronic Music of the NWDR (Northwest German
Radio) founded by Herbert Eimert in 1951. Among those working there
were avant-garde musicians like Karl Heinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel
and John Cage. Music and the fine arts met in the Fluxus movement, and
the combination of theatre performance, music, painting, sculpture and
recitation developed into the breeding-ground from which emerged the
television set and television as a subject of art, but also as a means
of expression for art. The seminal collaboration between Cage and Nam
June Paik also developed immediately after Paik’s move to Cologne
in 1958. "Paik’s early television experiments are partly
influenced by Cage but also show a keen sense of the importance of new
technological developments such as laser, cable, and microwave
television, videophone, video discs and cassettes."
That the birth of Video Art as Wulf Herzogenrath describes it should
have coincided with an event entitled "Exposition of Music" is typical
enough of the portrayed situation. It is striking that Fluxus events
were often called Fluxus concerts although today we would be more
likely to classify them as Performance or Happening rather than music.
But the name makes it clear that noises and sounds played an important
role. Terms like Performance or Happening were not yet established, and
in view of electronic experiments in the area of radio, it seemed
natural to extend these to television or to isolate parts of them and
try them out in the context of exhibitions. At any rate, the subtitle
of the 1963 exhibition "Exposition of Music" at the Gallery Parnass by
Nam June Paik was "Electronic Television", where he presented his work
"Zen for TV" in which he reduced the television picture to "zero" by
means of a magnet. In so doing he formulated the principle that was to
become a forming influence on Video Art in Germany up to the early
eighties: The obliteration of the television picture is a precondition
for the creation of art in television or by television, and therefore
it is in a sense a precondition for the creation of Video Art.
In the sixties, Fluxus is generally the basis on which the young Video
Art develops and at its birth, North Rhine-Westphalia was one of its
centres. "In the phase of its emergence during the sixties, North
Rhine-Westphalia became the geographical area with the most diverse
activities with concerts and Actions taking place in Wuppertal,
Düsseldorf, Cologne and Aachen where artists like Joseph Beuys,
George Brecht, Nam June Paik, Thomas Schmit, Emmett Williams, Wolf
Vostell and many others took residence."
Wolf Vostell’s "TV-Décollage Ereignisse und Handlungen
für Millionen im Jahr 1959" (TV Décollage Events and
Actions for the Millions in 1959) at his studio in Cologne marked the
start. Unlike Nam June Paik, Vostell did not begin with the programme
but with its reception and developed a concept for a television
broadcast in which the television audience was able to participate.
Although this does not imply any interactive influence on the
programme, something that was technically not possible at the time, it
meant planned actions relating to the broadcast intended to express
both reactions to it and a departure from it. Wolf Vostell’s
Television Décollage calls for a novel approach to television
programmes and the television set, activating the viewer and making him
a player in complete accordance with the concept of Fluxus. With his
call that the viewer be made the décollagist of television, Wolf
Vostell signalled the start for a critical approach to this mass medium
that was confirmed four years later by Nam June Paik when he reduced
the picture to a single line. In the same year, Wolf Vostell states his
position in an even more radical way, shooting a running television set
in a quarry in front of the audience during his Action "Nine
De-Collages" in Wuppertal.
Wolf Vostell and Nam June Paik may well be regarded as the first and
most influential driving force behind the artistic confrontation with
the medium of television although they emphasised different aspects:
Paik aimed more at the medium while Vostell was more interested in the
communication process. What follows also explains that with his concept
of décollage, Vostell largely kept to the path he had chosen
from the start while as early as the seventies, Paik developed from the
destructive concept artist into one producing videos, a fact already
suggested in his acquisition in 1965 of the first Sony Portapak on the
market.
A further step in the direction of the appropriation of television
technology by art and hence towards the establishment of the field of
Video Art was the foundation of the video gallery Gerry Schum in Berlin
on the 15th of April 1969 that moved to Düsseldorf a year later.
The years that followed saw the creation of the now famous tapes from
his production such as "Land-Art" with Marinus Boezem, Walter de Maria,
Jan Dibbets, Barry Flanagan, Michael Heizer and Richard Long that was
broadcast exactly a year later by the WDR (West German Radio), as well
as "Identification" with Giovanni Anselmo, Joseph Beuys, Aligiero
Boetti, Pierpaolo Calzolari, Jan Dibbets, Gilbert & George, Mario
Merz, Ulrich Rückriem, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Lawrence Weiner and
Gilberto Zorio that was broadcast by the WDR in 1970. The same radio
station had already caused a sensation in 1968 with the production of
"Black Gate Cologne" by Otto Piene and Aldo Tanbellini. The exchange of
views between Gerry Schum and Wibke von Bonin also led to the broadcast
of Keith Arnatt’s "Self Burial" "in which for eight days,
everyday at the same time a photograph of the artist sinking deeper and
deeper was inserted during whatever programme was running at that
moment", and to a regular broadcast of Jan Dibbet’s "TV as a
Fireplace" which between Christmas and New Year 1969 concluded the
programmes by showing a blazing open fire.
In 1970, Harald Szeemann’s exhibition "Happening & Fluxus" at
the Kölnischer Kunstverein gave a first retrospective view of the
intermedia aspect of the art scene in the sixties but only a few
artistic contributions had video and television as their subject.
At the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne, Gert Berghoff was
instrumental in founding the Cinemathek Köln where members of the
disbanded Arbeitsgruppe Film continued to work. In the following year,
the group X-Screen, Studio Cologne for Independent Film organised a
meeting on the subject of the "Development of the Computer Film".
Unlike the course of events in France with Jean Luc Godard, however,
the film scene in Cologne did not develop into a starting point or a
discussion partner for Video Art. The fact that Video Art is rooted in
the fine arts and in particular in Fluxus as outlined above, was the
point from which the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum started to tackle Video
Art.
The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum first got involved when it acquired Video
Art in 1972 and laid the foundation for a video department with the
acquisition of Gerry Schum’s video tapes "Land Art" and
"Identifications". The collection was added to the sculptural
department. In the same year, the new director of Kölnischer
Kunstverein Wulf Herzogenrath, a committed advocate of young art and
the new media, was taking charge of exhibitions. At the
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, too, the commitment to the new media endured.
Together with the Kölnischer Kunstverein and the Kunsthalle,
"Project 74" was organised under the overall control of Evelyn Weiss.
The exhibition was concerned with core aspects of the seventies and
included a large section on Performance and Video. Again, it is
characteristic of the contemporary video scene in the Rhineland that
Video Art was not oriented on film and was not presented as a separate
form of art but was firmly interwoven with the art trends of the early
seventies. In every respect, the concept of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum
did full justice to this situation. 101 artists were represented with
several video tapes, and there were live shows by Vito Acconci, Joan
Jonas, Claus Böhmler, Heinz Breloh, Douglas Davis and Ulrike
Rosenbach and others. Furthermore, it included works by Dieter Campus,
Valie Export, Frank Gilette, Dan Graham, Michael Hayden, Rebecca Horn,
Allen Kaprow, Charlotte Moorman, Nam June Paik, Reiner Ruthenbeck and
Peter Weibel as well as the Lijnbaancentrum, Telewissen, and Video
Audio Medien (Futurekids). With this exhibition, the
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum and its 20th Century department, the later
Museum Ludwig, took a clear stance on contemporary art and made its
mark as a house of the avant-garde.
Upon the appointment of Reinhold Mißelbeck in 1980, the Photo
Collection of the Museum Ludwig became a separate department. But in
the early eighties, it was the Kölnischer Kunstverein that first
took the initiative for Video Art, promoting this art form with
numerous solo exhibitions and presenting the comprehensive exhibition
"Videokunst in Deutschland" (Video Art in Germany) in 1981. In the
context of the exhibition "Deutsche Zeichnung der Gegenwart"
(Contemporary German Drawing) of 1982, the Museum Ludwig presented
design sketches and the video installation "Der Amerikaner, der den
Kolumbus zuerst entdeckte, machte eine böse Entdeckung oder nicht
einmal in Italien führen alle Wege nach Rom" (The American who
first discovered Columbus made a nasty discovery or, not even in Italy
do all roads lead to Rome) by Marcel Odenbach. 1984 saw the realisation
of the first "Internationale Photoszene Köln", initiated by
Reinhold Mißelbeck, which four years later also incorporated
Video Art and Performance into its programme. In 1985, the Photo
Collection of the Museum took charge of the Video Collection. Even
before the inauguration of the new building, a Performance programme
was initiated in the same year with contributions from Peter Gilles and
Ulrike Rosenbach that was to enter a dialogue with the video programme.
Egon Bunne shot a film documentary of the inaugural celebrations at the
Museum Ludwig in Autumn 1986 in the new technique of Betacam. This
production was to give the starting signal for future video activities
in the new house. The planned installation of a production centre for
video and the appointment of a technical director, however, fell
through at the last moment due to financial problems. In parallel to
the inauguration of the Museum Ludwig, the opening of the Klaus Peter
Schnüttger-Webs Museum was presented as a fictive live broadcast
by Ulrich Tillmann, Maria Vedder and Bettina Gruber in the
museum’s new video library. At the inauguration of the Museum
Ludwig, the first video sculpture found its way into the collection
with "Shigeko Kubotas Buddhas" by Nam June Paik, a work that had been
developed and produced by Paik especially for the collection of the
museum on the suggestion of Wolfgang Hahn. It is the only work in which
three figures of the Buddha are meditating before three monitors
together with the fathers of the new art that are most important to
Paik, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Marcel Duchamp. In an allusion
to the relics of the Three Kings kept in the cathedral of Cologne, Paik
originally wanted to call the work "The Three Kings", but then changed
his mind in favour of the present title.
In the following years, the video library of the museum made it its
objective to introduce selected video works from the collection in
context with the photographic works hanging in neighbouring rooms. The
result were presentations of the Land Art tapes from the video
collection Gerry Schum, introductions of subjects like Body-Art Video
and conceptual and minimalist works from the early seventies, but also
monographic presentations with video works by Douglas Davis, Montanez
Raffael Ortiz or Bettina Gruber/Maria Vedder. The Museum Ludwig began
to extend its video collection and in the eighties and nineties, it
acquired video tapes by Birgit Antoni, Rosy Beyelschmidt, Gabor Body,
Sieglinde Bölz, Hank Bull/Eric Metcalfe, Egon Bunne, Kate Craig,
Douglas Davis, Kit Fitzgerald/John Sanborn, Nancy Graves, Bettina
Gruber, François Guiton, Barbara Hammann, Astrid Heibach, Mike
Hentz, Kirsten Johannsen, Manfred Hulverscheidt, Dieter Kiessling,
Morris/Trasow, Chris Newman, Marcel Odenbach, Montanes Rafael Ortiz,
Jan Peacock, Ulrike Rosenbach, Joe Sarahan, Lisa Steel/Eric Tomczak,
Maria Vedder, Klaus vom Bruch, David Vostell, Wolf Vostell, and the
complete video works of Jürgen Klauke and Abramovic/Ulay. In
addition to videos by artists, a further collection of films about
artists like Gerhard Richter, Barnett Newman, Marcel Duchamp, Jasper
Johns, David Hockney, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Chargesheimer,
Gordon Parks, Horst P Horst, Richard Avedon and others was established
in connection with exhibitions held at the museum.
In connection with the International Photo Scene Cologne 1988, the
Museum Ludwig became the centre of evening events revolving around
Performance, slide projections, and Video Art. In "Circling", a
coproduction of Douglas Davis, Maria Vedder and Hank Bull, video images
were transmitted by telephone for the first time from Vancouver to the
Museum Ludwig with the help of Sony. Birgit Antoni presented her video
installation "Art et Technique", Meta-Ausstellung Karlsruhe showed
digitalised pictures in "Meta Portrait", Waterfront presented a video
programme from Buffalo, Hungary and New York State, Karin Hazelwander,
Wolfgang Fürst, Leo Schatzl and Albert Winkler introduced the
sculptural Video Performance "Die Theorie der Hora Z" (The Theory of
Hora Z), and Vera Body showed Japanese Video Art in "Infermental VIII".
At the same time, the video library of the Museum Ludwig presented its
"Hommage an Gerry Schum" with works by Volker Anding, Jean
François Guiton, Dieter Kießling, Marcel Odenbach, Kirsten
Johannsen, Manfred Hulverscheidt, Llurex, Gabor Body, Astrid Heibach,
Maria Vedder, Klaus vom Bruch and Ulrike Rosenbach. Once again, video
did not take place in this programme in isolation from other artistic
developments and techniques. In parallel, there were slide
installations by Mischa Kuball and Delta Galerie Düsseldorf, a
theatre performance by Franz Josef Heumannskämper and a
performance of music and slide projections "Beyond Good and Bad"
by Amy Kaps, Thomas and Günter Thorn and Theo Lustig.
In
connection with the picture shows "Zeitprofile – 30 Jahre
Kulturpreisträger der DGPh" (Profile of the times – 30 years
of cultural awards of the DGPh) that were taking place simultaneously
under the curatorship of Reinhold Mißelbeck, Maria Vedder
presented her video installation about Walter Bruch, the inventor of
PAL colour television: "PAL oder Never The Same Colour" which referred
to the first PAL broadcast on the 25th of August 1967 and the humorous
explanation for the name of the American system NTSC.
Because of preparations for the exhibition "Bilderstreit", the Museum
Ludwig was unable to participate in the exhibition on Video Sculpture
organised by Wulf Herzogenrath in 1989 and it therefore took place at
the DuMont Kunsthalle and at the Kunstverein.
In connection with a presentation of conceptual photo works in 1992,
the Museum Ludwig showed videos by John Baldessari, Richard Serra,
Douglas Davis, Keith Sonnier and Paul Sharits. In the same year, Peter
Ludwig acquired a large work by Nam June Paik that referred to the
different living conditions in the west and east of Germany. "The
Brandenburg Gate", a sculpture in the shape of the Brandenburg Gate
covered in 200 monitors, shows scenes from politics, culture and sports
in the FRG and GDR and is designed as a walk-in sculpture. The large
installation "Bombay" by Fabrizio Plessi was mounted in the Hoher Saal
of the Museum Ludwig in 1994. Long rows of rusty steel containers
reflected video images of flowing water and of the activities of
washerwomen which were also alluded to in twisted lengths of material
draped across the containers. Viewed from above and from a distance as
is possible in the Hoher Saal, the Installation offered a fascinating
reflection of an everyday situation in Bombay. Following this
exhibition, the Museum was given the video sculpture "Elektronische
Ruine" on loan in 1995. A waterfall flows from eight monitors between
artificial stone walls, a sculpture that, like the Installation
"Bombay", illustrates the dialogue between reality and virtuality in
Fabrizio Plessi’s work.
A further important work was added to the Museum Ludwig through Peter
and Irene Ludwig in 1995, the "Begrüßung" (Greeting) by Bill
Viola that had formed part of five works on the subject of "Buried
Secrets" at the Biennale in Venice. In this work, Bill Viola is
referring to a portrayal of the Visitation of Mary by the mannerist
painter Pontormo. The greeting among three pregnant women in
contemporary yet antique-style dress is extended from a 45 second
sequence to twelve minutes by slow motion, imparting excitement and
drama. The scene becomes a timeless metaphor, a sacred event.
In November 1998, the Museum Ludwig opened the exhibition "I love
N.Y.". Referring to the young New York art scene, it is dealing
in-depth with the subject of crossover and therefore video and the new
media. In the Concept-LandArt-Happening-Performance-Video-Fluxus scene,
crossover was not only prevalent from the start, it was a precondition
for its existence. All these art trends were frequently pursued by the
same artists and where this was not the case there was at least close
contact and mutual inspiration. Using the new media and video as a
matter of course, the artists of the nineties are once again plumbing
the limits of the arts. After all, it is characteristic of present-day
art that it freely makes use of history, mixing the material afresh
from today’s point of view. Even though older art experts may
occasionally be reminded of the sixties and early seventies, the scene
is undoubtedly exciting again.
(Quelle: http://www.museenkoeln.de/ludwig)
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