Anna and Bernhard Blume

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Anna and Bernhard Blume refer to the artist couple Anna Blume (born Helming; * April 21, 1936 in Bork / Westphalia ; † June 18, 2020 ) and Bernhard Johannes Blume (* September 8, 1937 in Dortmund ; †  September 1, 2011 in Cologne ). The couple is best known for their artistic photographs: in series of large-format photos in black and white, the two show staged stories in which they themselves appear. Her works are known beyond Germany and are exhibited in museums of contemporary art.

Life

Anna Helming and Bernhard Blume met as students at the State Art Academy in Düsseldorf , where both studied from 1960 to 1965. Bernhard Blume also studied philosophy at the University of Cologne from 1967 to 1970 . In 1967 the twins Hedwig and Anna († 2008) were born. The artist couple lived and worked together in Cologne .

Anna Blume (senior) worked as a craft and art teacher at a high school in Cologne until 1985; Bernhard Blume at the same time as an art and philosophy teacher. In 1984 Bernhard Blume took part in the group exhibition From Here - Two Months of New German Art in Düsseldorf . From 1987 he worked as a professor for fine art and visual communication at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts .

Bernhard Blume died in 2011 a few days before his 74th birthday. He is buried in the family grave on the old Ehrenfeld part of the Melaten cemetery in Cologne .

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The artist couple created installations, large-format photographs and especially in the 1990s Polaroids .

In recent years the focus has shifted from stagings and actions to photography, which however is often based on temporal processes - there are seldom works as individual images. With their photographs, mostly large-format series in black and white, the Blume couple do not depict reality, but use staged photography to try to graphically condense daily experiences from the petty-bourgeois milieu, often in an ironic way.

For example, the series "Vasen-Extasen", in which a flower vase in the apartment develops a surreal, mystical and hostile life of its own against the residents, was exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt and is part of this museum's holdings, along with other works by the artists, like “In the forest”, where trees develop an uncanny life of their own. Such series ironize habits and rituals and question the supposed security of the petty-bourgeois world through chaos in staged collapse stories.

Much of her work can be seen in her hometown of Cologne in the Museum Ludwig .

Works (selection)

  • 1977: Oedipal Complications? (Large series)
  • 1984: Wahnzimmer (series)
  • 1985: Kitchen fever (series)
  • 1985/86: Sweet Home (series)
  • 1986: Vase ecstasis (series; exhibited in the 2nd quarter of 2006 at the MMK Frankfurt am Main )
  • 1986: Meal (series)
  • 1982–90: In the forest (series)
  • 1987/88: mutually, a Polaroid series (Polaroid photo series created in Cologne and Tenerife; published as a book in 1990 by Philomene Magers and Balloni Verlag)
  • 1994/95: Transcendental Constructivism (series)
  • 2003: Happiness is without pardon / Joy knows no mercy (Ostfildern-Ruit / New York; book)

Public collection (selection)

  • Demonstrative identification with the universe. 1971.
  • Kitchen frenzy. 1986.
  • Opposites D (1989)

Exhibitions (selection)

Awards

Literature and Sources

  • documenta 6th catalog. Kassel 1977, ISBN 3-920453-00-X .
    • Volume 1: Painting, Sculpture / Environment, Performance.
    • Volume 2: photography, film, video.
    • Volume 3: Hand drawings, utopian design, books.
  • Klaus Honnef : 150 years of photography. (Extended special edition of Kunstforum International: 150 Years of Photography III / Photography at documenta 6. Volume 22). Two thousand and one, Mainz / Frankfurt am Main 1977.
  • Joseph Beuys , Bernhard Johannes Blume, Rainer Rappmann: Conversations about trees. 4th edition. FIU-Verlag, Wangen 2006, ISBN 3-928780-11-5 . (fiu-verlag.com/)
  • Marion Kittelmann: Salvation mania and time dizziness in the work of Anna & Bernhard Blume. 2002, DNB 967406226 . (Online dissertation University of Wuppertal 2002 full text online files in PDF format, accessible free of charge).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Anna Blume / Bernhard Johannes Blume . In: Art . The art magazine. Gruner + Jahr, December 1987, ISSN  0173-2781 , ART-Lexicon of Contemporary Artists, p. 136 .
  2. ^ Artist Anna Blume died. Announcement by WDR , June 21, 2020. Accessed June 21, 2020.
  3. ↑ Kasper König (ed.): From here - two months of new German art in Düsseldorf . Exhibition catalog. Cologne 1984, p. 325.
  4. ↑ Photographer Bernhard Blume has died. In: Ruhr news . September 3, 2011. ( ruhrnachrichten.de ( Memento from September 12, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )).
  5. ↑ Ingeborg Ruthe: Das Aufmucken der Dinge / The Cologne neo-Dadaist Bernhard Blume has died after a serious illness. In: Berliner Zeitung . September 3, 2011.
  6. ↑ burial place. In: findagrave.com. Retrieved May 26, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Bernhard Blume MoMA 2011.
  8. ↑ Anna & Bernhard Blume. Pure common sense. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin 2008. ( www.smb.museum ( Memento from December 15, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )).
  9. ↑ The west shines / A determination of the location of the art landscape of the Rhineland. ( Memento from March 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Kunstmuseum Bonn 2010.
  10. ↑ Painting with the camera. In: Berliner Morgenpost. December 6, 2010.