Projects
2016 -
Carl Gerhardt Rudolf 1922 - 2012
Carl Gerhardt Rudolf, born in Erfurt in 1922, worked as a historian
at the Institute for History of the German Academy of Sciences in East
Berlin. In 1966 he was transferred to the University of the Ministry for
State Security in Potsdam. In his theoretical writings, which are
largely dedicated to the phenomenon of the aura of a work of art in
the age of its reproducibility, he added handmade reproductions of
modernist works. They are intended to prove his thesis of a „projected
aura“ that the viewer ascribes to the work.
Since the mid-1960s, Rudolf has been listed as an unofficial
employee of the MfS, alias Rembrandt. He was subordinate to the
Bereich Moderne Kunst (Modern Art Department) MoK in order
to forge works to procure foreign currency. The autodidact often only
had oneview illustrations available as templates, which could lead to
deviations from the original. The “expansion” of the oeuvre of certain
artists was also common. A complete list of forged works does not
exist; the meager files in the federal archive for Stasi documents are
due to the destruction of documents around 1989.
After German reunification in 1990, Rudolf lived in Venice until his
death in 2012 and probably supported himself by selling earlier
productions. His case became public when his nephew offered
a Piet Mondrian work from the estate to an auction house. The
processing of Rudolf‘s work continues.
KT
2007 -
George Cup & Steve Elliiott 1930-2008 & 1933-1986
The artist duo George Cup & Steve Elliott is one of the protagonists of
American Minimal Art. As the sons of German emigrants, the two met at
the Art Students League in New York and became a couple in 1955,
both privately and professionally. Her paintings, light objects, sculptures
and experimental films, whose geometric design language and serial
conception had a decisive influence on the American avant-garde of the
1960s and early 70s, found their way into private collections and
museums and became part of the American art canon of Minimal Art
The unprecedented career ended with the violent death of Elliott in
1986 and the imprisonment of George Cup, who was convicted of the
alleged murder of his partner. Her works were systematically removed
from public space and museums, the depot in Brooklyn was liquidated,
and the works in storage were destroyed. Only after the rehabilitation
Cups 2007 began a re-evaluation. The two-part retrospective „Blacked
Out“ in Wolfsburg and Nordhorn, the artists‘ birthplaces, marked the
beginning of a reception that brought the influential work back into the
international art world, for example to the Tate Modern in London
and the Center Pompidou in Paris. Since 2008, the George Cup &
Steve Elliott Research Center for Minimal Art, based in New York and
Hanover, has been academically responsible for the oeuvre and
estate.
KT
2004 -
Jean Guillaume Ferrée 1926-1974
Born in 1926 in Lorquin on the edge of Alsace to a wealthy French
lieutenant and a German mother, Jean Guillaume Ferrée did not have
to work. In the mid-1950s, while staying with relatives in Heiligenrode
near Bremen, he contracted a rare form of memory loss, temporary
retrograde amnesia, which necessitated months of hospitalization at
intervals. His artistic work is also to be understood as a reaction to the
neurological disorder, as an attempt to reassure oneself of one‘s
surroundings through „memory images“. His paper collages,
assemblages and spatial installations can be located between Art brut,
Fluxus and Nouveau Réalisme. Contemporaries like Marcel Duchamp,
Yves Klein, Wolf Vostell or Ed Kienholz, whose works he must have
seen in Strasbourg and Paris, where he lived for a while, influenced
his work.
In his 1974 will, he decreed that his work was to be kept secret for
thirty years posthumously. He died a few months later under unclear
circumstances, and suicide cannot be ruled out. In 2005, Ferrée‘s
work was rediscovered and presented in a sensational
exhibition in Heiligenrode. The Musée Ferrée Lorquin has since
preserved his legacy.
KT
2003 -
Gustave Szathmáry 1867-1907
The German-Hungarian Gustav Szathmàry, born in Budapest in
1867, is an important composer and photographer. Educated at the
Vienna Conservatory and the Music Academy in Budapest, he
is regarded as a representative of modernism, similar to his
contemporaries Gustav Mahler and Béla Bartók, whom he knew
personally. His piano sonatas and orchestral pieces are an
expression of deep inner conflict.
His unsettled life was overshadowed by depression. After the death
of his father in 1880 he lived with his mother first in Vienna, later in
Budapest and from 1905 in Paris. With the invention of the camera
Babám No. 1 and a selftimer, which he applied for a patent
in 1896, he did not have any financial success, but he did create an
important series of self-portraits and photographs of artist friends
such as Rainer Maria Rilke. From 1905 he had a tragic relationship
with Paula Modersohn-Becker, whom the sculptor Bernhard Hoetger
had introduced to him in Paris. A short film sequence from that time,
shot by Szathmáry with a Pathé Frères, shows the young woman
sitting carefree in a meadow.
Szathmáry died of pneumonia in Worpswede in 1907, just two
weeks after Paula Modersohn-Becker‘s death. His grave, which was
laid out secretly by his friend István Ihász, was not discovered until
2003 near the Great Art Show and was extensively secured.
KT
2007 -
Victor N. Gaspari 1802-1833
Victor N. Gaspari, born in Ljubljana in 1802 and a fellow student of
France Prešeren in Vienna, was a nearly forgotten poet who was only
rediscovered through the discovery of documents. Out of a disillusioned
friendship, he denounced Prešeren in 1824, which led to Prešeren's
dismissal and return to Ljubljana. Later, the two clashed again when they
both vied for the affections of the same woman, Julija Primic, and
ultimately lost her. Gaspari processed this experience in his poem "Pride,"
from which Prešeren borrowed a stanza. This led to an argument, during
which Gaspari fell from the Dragon Bridge and drowned.
His mural on Julija's house disappeared in 1900, was rediscovered in a
cellar in 2006, and is now to be reinstalled as a memorial to his still
insufficiently appreciated work.
2007 -
Alphons Eckhard Schlitz 1895-1947
In the summer of 1921, five girls named Paula, all between 12 and
15 years old and from families in Bremen, disappeared along the
Moorexpress railway line near Worpswede. In a time overshadowed
by gruesome serial murders, there were fears of another perpetrator,
until train driver Hein Steinke, plagued by recurring nightmares,
observed a suspicious man approaching and abducting a girl in
Worpswede. Steinke confronted the man, high school teacher
Alphons Eckhard Schlitz, and handed him over to the police, who
found the abducted girls unharmed in a garden shed. Documents
relating to Paula Modersohn-Becker were found in Schlitz's
apartment; his delusion led him to project the blame for her death
onto all the children named Paula before he hanged himself in his
cell.
Meanwhile, in Worpswede, stories of will-o'-the-wisps, recounted
as the children's haunting spirits, persisted well into the 1980s.
2003 -
Karl Anton Breitenhut 1887-1952
Karl Anton Breitenhut, born in Bremerhaven in 1887, was a merchant
in Bremen and became known for mysterious photographic incidents
that severely affected him psychologically. In 1911, he allegedly
disappeared from a garden photograph belonging to his grandmother; in
his place remained only a blank space and a note written in his
handwriting, "Be right back," which he denied. For three years, he was
considered "out of the picture" until, in 1914, his image appeared on an
American cigarette trading card with the notation "Out of the garden." In
1915, he appeared and disappeared again in a city photograph of
Herford, filed a complaint against his own photograph, and in 1917 was
committed to a mental institution, where he lived until 1952.
2002 -
Mario Tombarell 1892-1930
Mario Anton Tombarell (born 1892 in Potsdam, died 1930 in Rotterdam)
was the German-Italian son of a family of knife throwers and was born with
exceptionally strong, ape-like feet. His father recognized the artistic
potential of this peculiarity early on and fostered his talent, initially at fairs
alongside other "abnormalities" and curiosity acts. At around eighteen,
Tombarell struck out on his own and soon conquered major variety
theaters such as the Scala, Wintergarten, and Plaza in Berlin, the Flora in
Hamburg, the Drei Linden in Leipzig, the Apollo in Dortmund, and the
Shouwburg in Rotterdam.
Despite his success, he suffered from severe pain and sought
orthopedic help in Münster, where surgery was refused, but he was
prescribed a special ointment for relief.
2000 -
Kaes van Dongen 1619-1672
Kaes van Dongen was born in Delft in 1619, the son of a cloth maker.
After leaving home early, he studied art and literature in Amsterdam and
Paris. He published his first volume of poetry in 1636 and was taken to
Brazil by Maurice of Nassau as a poet and travel writer. Later, he fre-
quented the courts of The Hague and Cleves, and was in the circle of
Elisabeth of the Palatinate, with whom he fell in love. Their relationship
was primarily conducted through correspondence. In Herford, he joined
the Labadist sect due to his proximity to Elisabeth.
In 1672, he was murdered by highwaymen near Sundern in Germany
while traveling with a new manuscript.
2003 -
Hinrich von Hagen ca. 1480-1534
When, in 1534, the Münster merchant Hinrich von Hagen secured his
gold fortune from the Anabaptists by burying it on the banks of the Aa
River outside the city gates, an exciting chapter of treasure hunting
began for the city of Münster. Hinrich von Hagen, who was drowned in
the Aa by Jan Matthys' henchmen, left behind a map with clues to the
location of this treasure. Throughout the centuries, treasure hunters and
adventurers, sometimes at great expense, have repeatedly tried to track
down this treasure.
Some adventurers even saw clues to the location of the valuables in
a poem by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. Dirk Hennig's documentary
documents the still-unsuccessful search for Hinrich's gold using
photographs, maps, and supposedly valuable finds.
One of the last living relatives of Hinrich von Hagen, Markus von
Hagen, who lives in Münster, will give introductory remarks for this
previously unknown chapter of the city's history at the opening.
2006 -
Hans Hermann Ekkys 1816-1899
Hans Hermann Ekkys was born in Bremen in 1816, the son of tailor
Alphons Otto Ekkys. He showed a strong artistic inclination from an early
age but trained as a tailor. After a stay in Paris as an aspiring sculptor, he
returned penniless, made a career as a tailor, married Henriette Dinslage,
and had two daughters. In 1845, he lost his wife and children in a house
fire, fell into a deep depression, and in 1846 moved to live with relatives in
Barrien, where faith and a Marian experience gave him renewed hope.
In 1847, he emigrated to America, became a gold prospector, later a
Civil War volunteer, and was politically and artistically active in
Washington, D.C. He died in 1899 wealthy but alone.
