PRESS RELEASE. Ich kenne kein Weekend. The Archive and Collection of René Block. Thematic areas in the exhibition

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1 BERLINISCHE GALERIE LANDESMUSEUM FÜR MODERNE ALTE JAKOBSTRASSE FON +49 (0) KUNST, FOTOGRAFIE UND ARCHITEKTUR BERLIN FAX +49 (0) STIFTUNG ÖFFENTLICHEN RECHTS POSTFACH BERLIN PRESS RELEASE Ulrike Andres Head of Marketing and Communications Fon +49 (0) Contact : Diana Brinkmeyer Marketing and Communications Fon +49 (0) brinkmeyer@berlinischegalerie.de Berlin, 11 September 2015 Ich kenne kein Weekend. The Archive and Collection of René Block. Thematic areas in the exhibition I KNOW NO WEEKEND Fifty-one years ago, René Block opened the legendary Neodada, Pop, Décollage, Capitalist Realism exhibition in a small basement space in Berlin-Schöneberg. From then on his gallery introduced Berlin to the most recent art by previously unknown artists such as Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Richard Hamilton, Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell. Whether as an art dealer or as project supervisor of the DAAD s (German Academic Exchange Service) Artists-in-Berlin Program from , René Block would become one of the central figures of neo-avant-gardism. A pioneer of the multiple and the publisher of prints, Block was concerned with art s democratization and new selfconception. How can art be expanded to encompass diverse media? How can it be reconceived in a close proximity to literature, music, performance and theater? The interdisciplinarity of the visual arts seems quite self-evident today, but at that time Block was an outspoken pioneer and leader of this revolution. During his international career as artistic director of the Kunsthalle Fridericianum in Kassel from and as the curator of numerous biennales, for example in Istanbul and Sydney René Block played a unique role in the history of discovering, showing, collecting and exhibiting modern art. The exhibition brings this history to life with documents, photographs and films dating from 1964 to 2014 from the Block Archive and combined with selected works from his collection. PRINT CABINET René Block came to Berlin from the Rhineland in the summer of 1963 to continue his art studies. In May 1964 he opened the Cabinet René Block. Grafisches Kabinett der Freien Galerie above the rooms of Dieter Ruckhaberle s Freier Galerie on Kurfürstenstrasse, where he showed two exhibitions in succession featuring prints by Klaus Peter Brehmer 1

2 and Bert Gerresheim. Block became acquainted with artists, critics and the Berlin public. Within a few weeks he conceived the idea of breaking away from the Freie Galerie and its surroundings and founding a gallery of his own, which he opened under his own name in September The Cabinet published two print editions on the occasion of the exhibitions, each copy of which sold for 10 DM. As an artistic experiment Block furthermore issued Brehmer s first machine-made original color print. Signed and numbered, its price was only 3 DM. In addition, the Spandauer Volksblatt newspaper published an original print made from a specially prepared printing block to illustrate its exhibition review. In this way 30,000 newspaper readers each received an original work of art. JOSEPH BEUYS René Block s work as an art dealer is more closely associated with Joseph Beuys than with any other artist. His first solo action in the gallery, the Fluxus chant The Chief in December 1964, was followed by further installations, actions and concerts. They include the 1969 concert I try to set (make) you free in the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, which had to be terminated due to rampaging spectators, and the Sweeping Up action (1972) in Karl-Marx-Platz in Berlin-Neukölln that can be seen as a commentary on the city s May Day demonstrations. Block s most important venture as a gallerist was surely the Beuys action I like America and America likes me on the occasion of the opening of his New York gallery in The artist locked himself in the gallery space with a wild coyote for several days, bringing both him and Block international fame. A spectacular action also accompanied the 1979 closing of the Berlin gallery, 15 years to the day after its opening. Beuys tore down bits of plaster from the gallery spaces which he then packed in boxes. The action was entitled: Yeah, Let s Stop This Shit Now. THE BERLIN GALLERY AND CAPITALIST REALISM The term Capitalist Realism was coined in 1963 by Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Konrad Lueg and Manfred Kuttner. These artists realized at that time a number of artistic actions in and around Düsseldorf under this label. Block was fascinated by the ability of these artists to integrate the reality of the illustrated object as well as West Germany s current societal situation (post-war reconstruction, repression of National Socialism) into art. When he opened his gallery on September 15, 1964, Block consequently entitled his first exhibition Neodada, Pop, Décollage, Capitalist Realism. By doing so he translated the term that had more to do with consumer-criticism in the Rhineland, where the so-called post-war economic miracle was particularly visible, to the divided city of Berlin, which was then defined by the political reality of the Cold War. The term Capitalist Realism took on a socio-critical level of meaning in this particular context in West Berlin, not least due to the addition of such artists as KP Brehmer, K.H. Hödicke and Wolf Vostell. EARLY ACTIONS Action art, sound art, performances and happenings belong to an artistic category that as such only originated in the latter half of the twentieth century. And in Berlin of the nineteen sixties and seventies, it was the Galerie Block that first focused on this field of activity. The gallery s first action, Stanley Brouwn s This Way Brouwn already took place during the gallery s first exhibition in 1964, and promptly came to a tumultuous conclusion. Many of the actions did not restrict themselves to the gallery space proper but 2

3 also extended out into the city space: Wolf Vostell carried out a happening in a junkyard, Nam June Paik in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Bazon Brock staged experimental theatre on Kurfürstendamm and wrapped an apartment's household articles in barbed wire. The Forum-Theater on Berlin s Kurfürstendamm became the Galerie Block s second venue, specializing in film evenings, concerts, festivals and performances. The concerts ranged from jazz and modern classical music to the electronic sounds of Tangerine Dream. Gilbert & George appeared there as living sculptures and films by Richard Hamilton and Dan Graham were shown. In 1970 the Festum Fluxorum Fluxus festival likewise took place there. LIDICE The Hommage à Lidice exhibition (1967) references a massacre perpetrated by the National Socialists during World War II. In 1942 all of the inhabitants of the Czech village of Lidice were murdered and the village itself was destroyed. In 1967 the chairman of the International Lidice Committee called on artists to donate works for a museum that was planned to be located at the memorial in Lidice. Block supported this action and invited 21 artists to take part in the Hommage à Lidice exhibition, which he conceived as a reconciliatory gesture. A unique collection of works by West Germany s avant-garde was assembled that Block himself brought to Prague in early The collection was long considered lost after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August of that year. On the occasion of its rediscovery in 1996 Block added works by 31 artists of the younger generation in conjunction with the Pro Lidice exhibition. These works now make up the core of the present-day Lidice art collection. With the current exhibition Remember Lidice in the spaces of the Edition Block, the collection is being updated yet again after three decades. BLOCKADE 69 In 1969 a series of shows entitled Blockade 69 opened at the Galerie René Block. Eight artists were each given the opportunity to arrange their own exhibition in the gallery. The underlying idea was the inseparable link between work, presentation and space. Beuys exhibited the grand piano that had been damaged at the Akademie der Künste during his I try to set (make) you free concert along with relics from that action. Inspired by a piece composed by Henning Christiansen that was being played simultaneously, Blinky Palermo marked the corner and edges of the space with minimalist wall drawings. K.H. Hödicke installed a living artwork in the white space by way of a chicken coop with white poultry. IMI Knoebel projected blank slides as a light occurrence. Reiner Ruthenbeck developed a space blockade made of stretched strips of fabric. Sigmar Polke imagined that a particle was orbiting this room and placed this message in individual letters on the floor. These changes undertaken in the very same space allowed art to be comprehended as an act, as an experience and as an intellectual process. 3

4 MULTIPLES AND EDITIONS Art objects issued in limited editions known as multiples represent a fundamental innovation in the history of twentieth-century art. They adhere to a democratic idea, namely the availability of accessible, reasonably priced art for everyone. The multiple is hence surrounded by the aura of rebellious because it operates as an alternative to highpriced originals. Multiples play an important role in René Block s work. He published a large number of editions since 1966 which were conceived together with the artists. Block regularly highlighted the cultural significance of the multiple, for example at the 1972 First Trade Fair for Multiplied Art in Berlin, of which he was one of the initiators, or his 1974 Multiples exhibition dealing with the history of this art form at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein. In 1968 the Edition Block published Joseph Beuys s first multiple, Evervess II 1, and with Nam June Paik s The Thinker (TV-Rodin), Block issued the very first video multiple in 1976/78. Joseph Beuys s Sled, which was produced in 1969 in conjunction with his installation The Pack, is one of the best known multiples to be published by the Edition Block. SOUND ART From the Music Box to the Acoustic Environment was the subtitle of the For Eyes and Ears exhibition realized by René Block in 1980 at Berlin s Akademie der Künste. And in fact the field of sound art encompasses a number of very different things, including, concerts, sound objects, happenings and installations. Even Joseph Beuys s first action at the Galerie Block The Chief was an audible action, bearing the subtitle Fluxus Chant. René Block likewise brought a wide range of sound art to Berlin, starting with his gallery s first concert in 1965 featuring Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman. Concerts given in the gallery s own spaces and in the Forum-Theater were firmly established parts of the Galerie Block s program. In 1970 Block showed a series of sound art installations featuring acoustic spaces designed by K. H. Hödicke and Wolf Vostell, among others. Beginning in the mid-1980s, René Block together with the Technical University Berlin produced the Inventions festival series, which was continued until FLUXUS The Fluxus art movement originated in New York during the nineteen fifties and rapidly grew into a network with branches around the world. With its integration of actions, happenings and festivals as standard components, Fluxus transcends the boundaries between the performing and the visual arts. The name Fluxus (Latin: fluxus = flowing) already suggests that the transitions here to music, theater and everyday life are fluid. The Galerie Block was the site of numerous Fluxus exhibitions and actions by such artists as George Brecht, Robert Filliou, Wolf Vostell, Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono and Dieter Roth as well as George Maciunas, the pioneer of the Fluxus movement. Along with Düsseldorf and Wiesbaden, Berlin became a center of the German Fluxus movement. In his New York gallery René Block similarly exhibited American Fluxus artists who were otherwise not represented by any gallery in their native country. 4

5 Block curated Fluxus retrospectives in the nineteen eighties and nineties, included a 1982 exhibition at Wiesbaden, where Germany s first Fluxus Festival took place twenty years earlier. BIENNALES Biennales play a special role in the world of contemporary art. They are not merely exhibitions that take place every two years. Since the nineteen nineties at the latest, biennales serve as yardsticks gauging the state of the visual arts in various places around the world. Modeled after the Venice Biennale, one of the world s most important art events, the term biennale has become synonymous for a system of internationally networked group exhibitions. René Block participated in the conception and realization of numerous biennales. Towards a Biennale of Peace, for example, was showed at the Hamburger Kunstverein in René Block served as artistic director of the biennales at Sydney (1990) and Istanbul (1995). The Cetinje Biennale (2004) formed the conclusion of the Balkans Trilogy and Block curated a section of the biennale at the South Korean city of Gwangju (2000). These globally oriented biennales not only introduce regional art scenes to international audiences but in turn also offer important impulses for local artists. ART AT THE PERIPHERY From 1998 to 2005 René Block headed the Museum Fridericianum (since 2001 Kunsthalle Fridericianum) in Kassel. After realizing a number of international biennales, Kassel offered him the opportunity to develop a complex long-term programmatic structure for a single venue. Block began in 1998 with Echo-sounder or 9 Questions to the Periphery, an exhibition presenting works by artists from Iran, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, China, Korea and Australia that addressed such themes as geographical periphery, cultural identity and the Western art business. In the Gorges of the Balkans. A Reportage from 2003 made up the start of the Balkans Trilogy, a series of exhibitions lasting over a year that explored the art scene in Southeast Europe. But Block s interest in peripheries is not to be comprehended solely in geographical terms but also with a view to media-oriented crossover and artists whose works lay at the outer margins of the Western art trade s perceptual range or are not considered representative, for example performance, sound art and Fluxus. 5