Chihiro Shimotani

Das Maß der Welt (The Measure of All Things)

Galerie Schüppenhauer, Cologne, 27th October 2011 until 11th February 2012

Chihiro Shimotani is equally at home with Japanese and European culture and philosophy. His frequent visits to Germany and other western countries where he teaches have given him as deep an affection for German and European culture as for his own. While Japan may strike most Europeans as rather strange, the artist sees a great philosophical bond between East and West, but remains cognisant of the differences. He sees the spoken and the written word as the key to the knowledge of humanity and as a way towards a universal philosophical language springing from a single yet global cultural core, namely the existence of thinking man in this universe.

Aware of his own transience and the inconceivability of space and time, Shimotani has consistently pursued cross-cultural philosophical themes in his exhibitions and works since 1993. In 2000, for example, he devoted the exhibition If the Shadow was the Substance to the great Japanese author and philosopher Yukio Mishima. His exhibition Vocalize of 2008 was about the work of French poet Arthur Rimbaud, and his current show, The Measure of All Things, engages with the work of Rainer Maria Rilke. Shimotani uses a philosophical language to create his poetic ‘landmarks’, either as permanent messages on rocks, stone, metal, paper or wood or in a more ephemeral vein on water, sand, ice, snow, wax, animal or plants. The artist sees his work as existing in total harmony with nature, man and the universe – the measure of all things.

Chihiro Shimotani was born in 1934 in Sakurai (Japan). He participated in the 1973 São Paulo Biennale and was awarded the Grand Prize of the Biennale. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) granted him a scholarship in Berlin from 1975 to 1977. In 1977 he participated in the 6th documenta in Kassel. He was a visiting professor at the Munich Art Academy in 1988/89 and then taught at the Summer Academies of Salzburg and Neuburg on the Danube. The artist began exhibiting in 1966 and has had many solo and group exhibitions both in Japan and abroad. His work can be found in collections and museums worldwide, among them the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum in Tokyo; the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and the Lenbachhaus in Munich. He completed numerous art projects in public spaces, among them in Germany at the Pax Christi Church in Krefeld (1980), at the European Patent Office in Munich (1992 and 2004), at the Heilbronner Stimme publishing house (1995) and at SCA in Mannheim (2002). Among his public projects in Japan are works at Sakurei City Hall (1981), at Mainichi Broadcasting and the Hanshin Railway in Osaka (1997 and 1999 respectively), at Konan University in Kobe (2000) and at the Osaka Securities Exchange (2011).

Jírí Kolár, Bela Kolárova

Collage – Kolár

Galerie Schüppenhauer, Cologne, 7th September until 22nd October 2011

After the onslaught of the big, noisy and hectic art events of this year, we invite you to enjoy the quiet lyricism of the work of Jírí Kolár, the grand master of collage and visual poetry. I am delighted to be able to present an outstanding selection of early works from a private collection that have spent the last thirty years in storage, unseen by human eyes. Among the works shown are several key pieces from the years 1959-1984 that bear eloquent witness to the artist’s desire to suspend the conventional concepts of time and space as well as those of artistic genres or disciplines. Alongside Jírí Kolár’s works we present a selection of works by his wife Bela Kolarova, long eclipsed by her husband’s fame but present in many of his works.

Jírí Kolár has been part of the gallery programme since 1983/84. His first solo exhibition in 1984 was followed by many more; catalogues of these past exhibitions can be consulted during the forthcoming show.

Jírí Kolár was born on 24 September 1914 in Protivin in southern Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic). After an apprenticeship as a carpenter, he took a series of occasional dead-end jobs. His love of poetry and his reading of Apollinaire, Mallarmé and Marinetti inspired him to change course and give his life a new direction. He moved to Prague and became a poet. In his poems he used the vulgar tongue of the spoken language, subjecting it to a cut-up technique that later also characterised his collages. His first collages, which attest to the lingering influence of Surrealism, were made in 1934 and exhibited in 1937; his poems were first published in 1941. In 1942 he was the only poet to join Group 42, an association of avant-garde painters, theorists and litterateurs, but soon felt drawn to the fine arts and music and produced his first ‘poems of silence’ – typewritten abstract compositions, also referred to as ‘evident poetry’. In the 1950s he experimented with different forms of collage and assemblage, developing rollage, chiasmage, confrontage etc. In the 1960s he expanded his range with object poems, knot poems, razor blade poems, depth poems, illiterograms, looniegrams etc. He wrote ballets and plays. In 1949 he married Bela Heclova (Kolarova).

The first exhibition of Jírí Kolár’s collages took place in Prague in 1937. The artist’s first trip abroad in 1946/47 took him to Paris. In 1953 he spent nine months in prison for distributing subversive texts. The early 1960s saw the start of regular museum and gallery exhibitions, both at home and internationally, for example in1962 in Prague, in 1963 in London, Miami (Museum of Modern Art), Vienna, Lisbon, Paris, Essen, Florence, Turin, Munich; in1968 at the Kunsthalle Nuremberg; documenta 4, Kassel; in 1969 in New York, Hanover, Ulm; Sao Paulo Biennale (1. Prize); in 1975, 1978 and 1985 at the Guggenheim-Museum in New York. In 1977 he and his wife were among the first signatories of the Charter 77; in 1979/80 he had a DAAD scholarship in West Berlin. In 1980, while he was in Paris as a guest of the Pompidou Centre, Kolár was sentenced to imprisonment, his possessions were confiscated and he was barred from returning to Prague. He remained in Paris. His nine-year exile was punctuated by numerous exhibitions in museums and galleries in Europe, the United States and Canada. In 1999 he returned to Prague, where he died in February of 2002.

Bela Kolarova was born in Terzin in 1923. After an apprenticeship, she worked in a bookshop, a printing press and a shoe factory. In 1949 she married Jírí Kolár. Kolarova began to work as a photographer in the 1950s, composing collages from a wide range of everyday objects such as buttons, poppers, thread spools, razor blades or cosmetic products. Although these collages share the sensitivity that informs her husband’s work, they are nonetheless independent works in their own right. In 1962 she exhibited for the first time alongside other artists at the Manés in Prague; in 1966 she had her first solo exhibition in a gallery. She accompanied her husband to Berlin and Paris. In 1981 she travelled to Prague to try and sort out her husband’s affairs. She was prevented from leaving again and could not rejoin him in Paris until 1985.

Although she rarely exhibited before her participation in documenta 12, her works are now highly sought after. In the spring of 2011 she had an exhibition at the Cologne Kunstverein. We first showed her work alongside that of her husband in 1994/95 in the exhibition Zwischenzeitraum II. Bela Kolarova died in April 2010 in Prague.

Ben Patterson

Marzipan, Beton und seltene Erde: Musik, Kunst und Dichtung

Galerie Schüppenhauer, Cologne, 9th April until 25th June 2011

On the occasion of Ben Patterson’s recently finished retrospective at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and the coming somewhat smaller version of the exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, (30 March-26 June 2011) we are presenting Marzipan, Concrete and Rare Earth: Music, Art and Poetry, an exhibition in which the artist takes a look at life in today’s megalopolises. Yet Ben would not be Ben, if he did not do so in his very own witty and profound way.

Artist’s Notes to the Exhibition:

On a first reading, the title of this exhibition, “Marzipan, Concrete and Rare Earths:…” appears only to describe the physical properties of the principal materials used to create these objects and raises the question: “Why has the artist chosen to work with this curious palette of materials?” However, on seeing these works certain metaphorical intentions may become clearer. Starting with the “portraits”, depicting life in the world’s ten largest mega-cities, one finds in each a small figure of a homeless person, molded from marzipan, a material, which in the beginning is soft and pliable, but when unprotected and exposed to the environment, becomes hard and brittle. The cast concrete objects can then be seen as metaphors for the hardness of life in these mega-cities, as lamented in Bob Marley’s famous 1973 reggae song, “Concrete Jungle”. Finally, in this context, “rare earths” do not refer to those precious minerals, so essential to modern technology, but rather to those rare places on earth offering respite from these “concrete jungles”.

Born in Pittsburgh in 1934, Ben Patterson studied double bass, composition and conducting at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. After his graduation in 1956 he very quickly became one of the most sought-after young double bass players in the US. A successful career in classical music lay ahead of him. In the spring of 1960, attracted by the reputation of the WDR’s Studio for Electronic Music, he came to Cologne to broaden his musical horizons by studying New Music with Stockhausen, an experiment that was quickly abandoned due to mutual incomprehension. In June of 1960, alongside many young musicians, writers and artists, among them John Cage, Nam June Paik, David Tudor and H.G. Helms, he took part in the ‘Counter Festival concerts’ organised by Mary Bauermeister in her Cologne studio, which took place after the official concerts of the International Society for New Music at the radio station. The participants at these concerts of ‘newest music’ became the protagonists of the pre-Fluxus history in the Rhineland. Ben Patterson’s career took a turn in an unanticipated direction. He became – and still is – one of the most versatile and original artists of the Fluxus movement which emerged in Wiesbaden in 1962. His work and his performances are shown in museums and galleries around the world. We have been presenting Ben Patterson in solo and group exhibitions since 1989.

Natural Affairs

QuadrART Dornbirn, Austria, 05.09.2015 until 01.11.2015

The exhibition "natural affairs" shows the variety of artistic examination with the theme of nature from the origin up to the usage of the natural resources in science and technology – artists as cross-borders between art and science.

Ben Patterson

Dr. Ben's Medicine Show

Filmforum at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, April 1st 2014, 7 p.m

Ben Patterson, the musician and original Fluxus artist, turns 80 years old on May 29, 2014. To celebrate this anniversary with many friends around the world, he set off for his 80th BIRTHDAY TOUR at the beginning of February. In 12 cities in Europe and Japan, which have played an important role in his life as a musician and artist, he stops with "Dr. Ben's medicine show", started in Genoa. The tour will continue in Zagreb, Hanover, Berlin, Cologne on April 1st, Tokyo, Blois, Amsterdam, Brno, Krakow, Schwerin and will end on May 28 at the Wiesbaden Art Club with a big birthday party.

Dr. Ben's medicine show is an allusion to the "medicine shows" in the good old days in America. Pseudo doctors marched through the country and promised healing through their miracle elixirs, whose extemporaneous products consisted mostly of hard alcohol and opium. "Miracle healing" was thus guaranteed. Dr. Ben's medicine show offers the prospect of healing for those who completely lack the understanding of contemporary art. In a PowerPoint presentation Dr. Ben explains how he tracks down and diagnoses the error in the brain with the science of "neuro-aesthetics" developed by him as well as a brain scan, and he offers a means with which this understanding blockade is going to heal. His miracle medicine is a rare medicinal water, "Dr. Ben's Fluxus Urquell Elixir", that rises in the "Fluxus Urquell fountain" in the lobby of the Museum Wiesbaden and which was filled gentle by Dr. Ben personally. This "Fluxus Urquell Elixir" with certificate is available in a six-pack during the performance.

Prä-Fluxus International

On the road to FLUXUS

Galerie Schüppenhauer, Cologne, 15th May until 30th June 2012

To mark the 50th anniversary of Fluxus and the 100th birthday of John Cage, the Cologne exhibition is setting out ‘on the road to Fluxus’. The journey began in the late 1950s when talented young people – artists, musicians, poets and scientists – all over the world set out to forge new paths of artistic creativity.

After the turmoil of war, the destruction and reconstruction, young artists of all stripes and nationalities sought to get away from stale traditions and ossified ways of thinking and to foster a boundless, unrestrained creativity to reflect the new free world. This longing for freedom was fundamental to the later Fluxus movement which encompassed all creative media without ever manifesting itself in a specific form. Everything was and remains in flux and follows the playful intuition of the individual artist.

The exhibition is an attempt to get a better understanding of that creative period leading up to Fluxus. A selection of works, documentations and one-offs provide an insight into important stages of the pre-Fluxus journey of the late 1950s until 1962 – without ever claiming to offer the full picture. One of the aspects we focus on are the activities in Cologne, where Stockhausen’s Studio for New Music at the WDR broadcasting house played a seminal role and where Mary Bauermeister had her studio. In addition we take a closer look at the Galerie 22 in Düsseldorf and Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal. The exhibition is complemented by films and videos, for example of Ben Vautier’s conceptual performances in Nice in the late 1950s.

In addition to works and documentations of the pre-Fluxus era, we also show works by Fluxus artists such as Mary Bauermeister, Michael von Biel, Sylvano Bussotti, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, George Brecht, Christo, Robert Filliou, Al Hansen, H.G.Helms, Geoffrey Hendricks, Dick Higgins, Ray Johnson, Joe Jones, Allan Kaprow, Alison Knowles, Haro Lauhus, Heinz-Klaus Metzger, Georg Maciunas, Nam June Paik, Ben Patterson, Daniel Spoerri, K.H. Stockhausen, André Thomkins, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Stefan Wewerka and Emmett Williams that were produced after 1962.

Gruppenausstellung

Best of

Galerie Schüppenhauer, Cologne, 1st May until 29th April 2012

Running at two sites, Best of presents works by artists who have shaped the gallery programme over the last thirty years. The first part of the exhibition is shown at the gallery, the second is hosted by “die Kunstagentin” on Maastrichter Str. 26.

Concrete Poetry and Visual Poetry, forms of art that transcended the traditional bounds of artistic media long before the dawn of the media age, have been a leitmotif of our programme ever since the gallery first opened in 1980. Among its most famous practitioners are Jiří Kolář, the grand old master of collage, as well as Kurt Schwitters, André Thomkins, Ernst Jandl, Heinz Gappmayr and Gerhard Rühm as well as numerous international artists. Horst Haack, the writer and draughtsman, has been chronicling world affairs and events of the day in his panel-mounted diary Chronographie Terrestre – work in progress since 1981.

A wanderer between cultures, the Japanese artist Chihiro Schimotani, is printing, cutting and appliquéing his texts onto stone, wood, paper or metal.

Freddy Paul Grunert is engaging with the work of Heidegger and other philosophers and translates the fruit of his studies into pictures and installations.

Jan Kotik, a master of painting and collage, liberated the painting from the wall and the canvas from the right angle.

Disused maps of the world or the heavens play an important role in the work of Cristina Barroso who transforms the printed geography into imaginary landscapes and celestial bodies.

Ute Heuer’s conceptual paintings investigate the structure of pure colour dragged across the canvas in a single flowing motion.

Steven Rand works on the margins of painting and photography. Without using a camera, he produces temporary photographs and colour-field paintings without the use of a brush.

Hannelore Landrock-Schumann transforms spaces through colour alone.

At first glance Vera Röhm’s pared down mathematical shadow pieces and astronomy works seem the exact opposite of her poetic water texts and her wood and acrylic Ergänzungen. Yet in all of these, it is the fundamental structure that fascinates her.

Michael Gitlin’s sculptures made of copper tubing look like three-dimensional wall drawings, his drawings like shallow reliefs.

In the 1980s, computer art made its first appearance in the gallery in the work of Johannes Deutsch. He now creates interactive stage sets, most recently for a production of Robert Schumann’s opera Manfred at the Tonhalle Düsseldorf.

The work of media artist Franz John is situated between art and science. His installation Turing Tables (named for Alan Turing) transforms seismological data from around the world into sound and image and places the viewer in the middle of a real-time data stream.

Science and art also form the parameters of Costantino Ciervo’s practice. His works address philosophical and political themes.

The sound and video installations by Concha Jerez/José Iges belong to the world of electronic music. Poetry and irony in equal measure characterise Concha Jerez’s objects and drawings.

Rilo Chmielorz is a painter and an electronic musician. Her sgraffito pictures and performances unite the two media.

The media artist Alba D’Urbano and the photographer Tina Bara cooperate on many projects, often examining human behaviour with a wry sense of humour.

In 1960/61 Mary Bauermeister’s studio was the hub of avant-garde art, where all the then-current conventions of art, literature, music and dance were turned upside down and cast into doubt. Her experimental works oscillate between art, music and language.

The musician Ben Patterson played an active role in the pre-Fluxus activities in the Rhineland and became a Fluxus artist and performer. His subtle works brim with easy irony and often allude to music.

Ben Vautier, the grand master of words, theories and philosophies, inscribes walls and canvases all over the world with his thoughts and musings on the state of the world.

Daniel Spoerri collects weird and wonderful items of daily use, injecting them with new life by putting them into wall objects, sculptures and collage boxes. The musician, composer, writer, director, poet, artist etc Manos Tsangaris channels his many talents into fascinating interactive installations that combine sound and experience.

Another man of varied talents is Jim Avignon, who has been with the gallery since 1996. A (speed-) painter, musician, performer, writer etc, he ceaselessly travels the world. His subject is life, his philosophy: everyone should be able to afford his art.