Beate Passow

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Beate Passow (* 1945 in Stadtoldendorf ) is a German installation , photo and collage artist . With her art she works “against oblivion”, but sees her work not as coming to terms with the past, but rather as “coming to terms with the present”. In 2017 she received the Gabriele Münter Prize for visual artists in Germany.

Career

Beate Passow was born in Stadtoldendorf in Lower Saxony in 1945. From 1969 to 1975 she studied painting under Mac Zimmermann at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts , but soon turned to conceptual art . She has lived and worked in Munich since 1966.

Artistic positions

Beate Passow works with installations , objects, photo documentation and images. She also creates art in public spaces .

“Beate Passow works against forgetting.” According to her Art of Memory concept , she made the repressed German past the subject of her political art in the late 1980s: since then she has dealt with National Socialism , the annihilation of peoples and war, but also neo-Nazism . In doing so, the present should be made comprehensible through the connection to the past without a raised index finger. The artist does not see her work as coming to terms with the past, but rather as “coming to terms with the present”. She is “not a woman of political slogans”. Rather, she succeeds in "bringing political or moral problem areas into one picture in full, in all their complexity [...]".

There is humor in her works, but also "a lot of seriousness and above all a highly sensitive political and social attitude". In some works she also shows “the psychological damage to the individual in the growing social cold of our society”. Beate Passow believes in “the emotional potential of works of art”. She wants her works to “look beautiful” so that you don't immediately notice that “something completely different is hidden behind them”. Again and again she uses “embroidery as a metaphor for the combination of otherwise incompatible elements”.

Works (selection)

Reference points 38/88 (1988)

At the Styrian Autumn in Graz , Beate Passow presented an installation that dealt with the role of the church during the Third Reich : Above a portal of the Archbishop's Palace were two photos of Thomas Mann and Pope Pius XII. installed in his regalia. Thomas Mann's voice could be heard over a loudspeaker. Every hour on the hour, one of those legendary speeches that Thomas Mann had given the German people from London from 1940 to 1945 rang out of the speakers.

A man lives in the house (1990)

This Adolf Eichmann installation consists of a walk-in glass house in which the verdict in the Eichmann trial can be heard via headphones, and outside the glass house the indictment, both spoken by Harry Mulisch . On the front of the glass house there are two photos by Eichmann: "once the right side is doubled and once the left - a practice that was used in psychiatry to show the two sides of a person".

Beate Passow quotes Paul Celan's poem Death Fugue in the title . The photo of Adolf Eichmanns, taken after his kidnapping from Argentina to Israel in 1960, is a media icon of the 20th century. During the trial in Jerusalem, Eichmann sat in a glass case and presented himself there as a “servile receiver of orders”. Media icons were quoted and commented on in an artistic context.

The work was exhibited in 1990 in the art forum of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich .

17411 (1993)

This concentration camp coat with the red triangle as a symbol of the political prisoners, a find from a shop in Paris, showed Beate Passow in a showcase of a fashion shop in the Weinstrasse in Munich. The coat was provided with a price tag and decorations like other items of clothing, integrated inconspicuously into the surroundings, with the appearance of a merchandise for sale. The "emotional [...] horror" that arises results from the discrepancy between the inconspicuousness of the form and the content.

Wounds of Memory (1993–1995)

For this project, the artist and Andreas von Weizsäcker installed plaques in Germany and other European countries that show traces of the Second World War in the present, such as bullet holes or shrapnel . It made no difference whether the feelings came from the Germans, the defenders or the Allies. The boards were each labeled in the national language. “There is an injury and it is pointed out in two to five words, depending on the national language. This injury is not named, the reason for it is not explained, and no story is told. The wounds of memory are not signs, but requests to go on a search and to draw your own conclusions. "

Miss B. and Mrs. P. (1994)

In this work, too, the first, hastily made impression of the viewer is exposed at the second glance: The photographs show two women, of whom the viewer can "quickly get a clichéd picture": The younger one stands with her back to the viewer in front of an aluminum panel and leaves a somewhat haughty impression. The older one is sitting in a brocade armchair in her apartment, which has an upper-class atmosphere. The two women could decide for themselves how they wanted to be shown in the photos, the artist just put them into the picture correctly.

“So in this work I use historical or biographical material, not to convey a message that could be precisely named, but to make the viewer emotionally insecure. I ask how things are today. The intention only creeps in very quietly. And in the best case scenario, the insecurity gives rise to the viewer's motivation to question things instead of trusting their appearance. That is not dealing with the past, but dealing with the present. "

Framework conditions (1994)

Framework
Beate Passow , 1994
Cibachrome and Alucobond
111 × 92 cm

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

The starting point for this series is a photo of the so-called Rostock trouser pisser who occurred during the riots in Rostock-Lichtenhagen . On the one hand, the man embodies violence, but has lost control of his bladder, so obviously fear himself. The photo had been spread by the media around the world. Beate Passow designed seven versions of this picture in front of a neutral dark background. The works of art do not differ in the photo, but only in the frame - "sometimes baroque ornate, then minimalist simple, with a red passe-partout or made of fine wood - these frames are so that for there is something for every taste and every milieu ”. Wolfgang Ullrich interpreted this as a warning from the artist, "that everyone, no matter how unsympathetic who glorifies violence, can be at home anywhere".

Gilded high seat (1995)

This was Beate Passow's first political work in public space: A gold-plated high seat was set up opposite the Prinz-Carl-Palais , from which - in a figurative sense - one could aim at the passionate hunter Franz Josef Strauss .

I wanted to ask you to answer the following question ... that I miss (1996)

The large-format triptych is exhibited in the anteroom of the Irsee Monastery . During the Nazi period of tyranny, disabled people were murdered in the rooms of the former monastery . Passow's work combines three photographs of victims made by perpetrators with excerpts from the correspondence between Valentin Faltlhauser , the responsible institution director, and Georg Hensel , who carried out TB tests on disabled children in Kaufbeuren-Irsee.

The secret of salvation is called memory (1997)

In 1997, the memorial plaque The secret of redemption is called remembrance was attached to one of the facades of the courtyard of the Siemens administration building at Rohrdamm 85 in Berlin . The mosaic created by Beate Passow together with Andreas von Weizsäcker shows a Siemens express train (popular name for a tube receiver made in 1924 ) in memory of the Siemens - Nazi forced laborers against a broken background .

Source privilege (1999/2008)

In 1999 the Montag Foundation for Art and Society implemented the project Hidden Places: Erpel-Remagen bridgeheads with eight artists . Remains of the historically significant bridge near Erpel – Remagen , which was destroyed at the end of the Second World War , became a place of artistic engagement with the German past. For this installation, Beate Passow froze books in two refrigerators. a. the complete edition by Ernst Jünger . After 1999, Beate Passow continued to collect signs that refer to violence, such as symbols for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and documents of violence in Darfour .

In 2008 she replaced the two refrigerators and put new books in them. Now she selected literature that reflected current events literarily, such as Walter Benjamin's book on Paris and Kali by Peter Handke . The open refrigerator doors show screen prints from places of armed conflict, such as the destroyed Danube bridge in Novi Sad .

Lotuslillies (2000)

The color photos show old Chinese women whose tiny lotus feet are hidden in finely embroidered cloth shoes: In their childhood, according to the ideal of beauty at the time, their feet were tied so that they could not grow and were crippled. Beate Passow once again chooses "not the direct route of the indictment or the shock photos, but the indirect route of subtle staging": The beautiful appearance conceals the oppression of women.

Numerator / Denominator (2005)

In the mid-1990s, the artist visited survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp. For her "deliberately documentary photo series" numerator / denominator , she photographed the arms of these people in such a way that the number that was tattooed on them in the concentration camp could be recognized. The series of 40 photographs makes the common denominator visible: "Even more directly than in the Star of David, the compulsion, the oppression and mechanization are made vividly what can be seen here, conveys something of the most incredible", says the curator of the exhibition of the project in the Jewish Museum Vienna in Vienna.

Fashion and Consciousness (2006)

Fashion and awareness
Beate Passow , 2006
Color photography

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

For a series of color photographs, the artist staged scenes with women in colorful burqas in unusual positions, for example in the beer garden in front of beer glasses or on a motorcycle. It's about women, their clothes, their freedom of movement in public. The series was seen as a criticism of clichés.

Financial Times stock exchange prices September 12, 2001 (2007/2008)

Two large panels, embroidered in pink silk, show the stock exchange prices from September 12, 2001 . World Markets At A Glance lists the share prices of the individual countries, the dependence on world events is particularly clear in the World Stock Market graphic . The horror of terror is hidden in an image that at first glance looks aesthetic.

Picnic in Persia (2012)

Picnic in Persia
Beate Passow , 2012
Photography, printed on canvas
80 × 120 cm

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

On her travels to Iran, China and Pakistan, Passow documented the everyday life of the people and showed "in a subtle way intimate insights into their existence".

In the series Picnic in Persia , she photographed people during a break on a trip to Iran in 2012. The images convey relaxation and enable the viewer to find familiar things in the unfamiliar: two women smoke at a motorway service station, a young couple rests on a porch between cushions, truck drivers smoke a water pipe in the shade of their car. In this way, the viewer can perform the change of perspective to which Beate Passow's work repeatedly encourages.

Grodek (2015)

Grodek
Beate Passow , 2015
embroidery

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

Georg Trakl's last poem Grodek is embroidered on a green map with the poet's shadow on it. Trakl's handwriting served as a model for the form of the script. The letters cast small shadows. They appear three-dimensional, as if they were moving across the landscape. The map is a NASA satellite map . This creates an intellectual connection to the military purpose of maps, to material for the control of missiles or cruise missiles . The area shown belongs politically to different states, but no borders are visible. This is a reminder of how much boundaries are subject to political development, how relative they are.

Burka Barbies (2016)

Nine Barbies dressed in colored burqas stand on a mirror tray so that you can see their crotch. The artist decided to show the dolls with bare legs in mini skirts. In doing so, she wanted to bring together what she sees as a symbol for women in the Muslim world with the representation of women in liberal Western societies. Beate Passow bought the tiny burqas in Afghanistan, where the fabric is put over bottles to decorate them and to disguise alcohol consumption.

Wanted (2016/2017)

Wanted (part of the eight-part series with this title)
Beate Passow , 2016/2017
Embroidery and photo on fabric
90 × 120 cm

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

The artist began this eight-part series after the terrorist attack on the Bataclan in Paris . She wanted to make traces of the history of terror and its interventions in everyday life visible. In this series, content and material are combined in an unusual way. The subject is wanted posters on terrorists of the RAF , some of which Beate Passow still remembered, through to the NSU killers. The texts are embroidered on silk, the photographs are reproduced on silk. It shows that terror can neither be limited in time nor place: The templates come from Palestine, the Federal Republic, Japan, France and the USA, the oldest are from 1947, the youngest from today.

This work evoked diverse expressions of opinion: The embroidered texts and images would refer to the private shelter, before which the violence does not stop. This place of retreat is connected with the public images of horror: Visual and linguistic information give evidence of the thought horizon of the respective time. The work could be understood as a suggestion to “rethink what is familiar, to reorganize, perhaps to reinterpret”. Simone Reber judged that domestic craftsmanship posed the uncomfortable question of "how terror can arise from within a country". Tom Mustroph said that the gallery "involuntarily makes people think about wagon castle mentalities, about fear-driven isolationist practices".

Exhibitions (selection)

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Awards (selection)

  • 1988 RischArt Prize
  • 1988 Award for Fine Arts of the City of Munich
  • 2002 Art Prize of the City of Munich
  • 2017 Gabriele Münter Prize , “the most prestigious art prize for female visual artists in Germany”. By awarding the Gabriele Münter Prize 2017 to Beate Passow, the jury recognized “the consistent artistic approach in Passow's oeuvre”. Her understanding of history addresses “her own biography and critical examination of the social and political conditions of the present”. Using different artistic techniques, Beate Passow "opposes questionable systems of rule, excessive economization of the individual and increasing surveillance with her gaze and her camera."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Helmut Friedel: Against forgetting - Put your finger on memory wounds. In: beate-passow.de. Retrieved May 27, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Beate Passow in conversation with Alexander Braun: 'Not dealing with the past, but dealing with the present': KUNSTFORUM international. In: kunstforum.de. October 18, 1977. Retrieved May 25, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b c Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth - Manuela Schwesig hands over GABRIELE MÜNTER PRIZE 2017. In: bmfsfj.de. March 15, 2017. Retrieved May 24, 2017 .
  4. ^ Academy of Arts, Berlin - Gabriele Münter Prize 2017. In: altertuemliches.at. Retrieved May 17, 2017 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Barbara Reitter-Welter: Art Prize of the City of Munich for Beate Passow :. In: welt.de . October 26, 2002, accessed May 22, 2017 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g Wolfgang Ullrich: Burkas. In: beate-passow.de. Retrieved May 25, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Jürgen Moises: Burka Barbies for Berlin. In: sueddeutsche.de . March 13, 2017. Retrieved May 23, 2017 .
  8. ^ Notes on the Beginning of the Short 20th Century - Announcements - e-flux. In: e-flux.com. May 24, 2015, accessed on May 27, 2017 (English, original quote: "uses embroidery as a metaphor for the combination of otherwise incompatible elements" .).
  9. ↑ a b c d Gerhard Paul: Visual History. In: docupedia.de. September 15, 2001. Retrieved May 27, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Beate Passow. In: nrw-museum.de. April 18, 2012, Retrieved May 28, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Federal Agency for Political Education: Places of Remembrance. In: bpb.de. Retrieved May 27, 2017 .
  12. ↑ a b 100 years of administration building - Siemens AG. In: vg100.de. August 1, 2014, accessed May 27, 2017 .
  13. ↑ a b Hidden Places: Art and Society. In: montag-stiftungen.de. May 1, 2013, accessed May 23, 2017 .
  14. ↑ a b Beate Passow: Art and Society. In: montag-stiftungen.de. September 12, 2001. Retrieved May 23, 2017 .
  15. ↑ a b numerator / denominator. Beate Passow - Jewish Museum Vienna. In: jmw.at. September 4, 2005, accessed May 23, 2017 .
  16. ↑ a b c d Gabriele Münter Prize 2017 - Exhibition. In: art-in-berlin.de. Retrieved May 18, 2017 .
  17. ↑ a b c d e Katrin Bettina Müller: The clothes of women. In: taz.de . March 24, 2017. Retrieved May 24, 2017 .
  18. ^ Wolfgang Ullrich: Text by Wolfgang Ullrich. In: beate-passow.de. September 12, 2001. Retrieved May 28, 2017 .
  19. ↑ a b c Simone Reber: Münter Prize to Beate Passow: Embroidered wanted posters. In: tagesspiegel.de . March 16, 2017. Retrieved May 22, 2017 .
  20. ↑ a b c d Beate Passow: a literary approach to the drug issue in the First World War - MQ Blog. In: mqw.at. June 28, 2015, accessed May 24, 2017 .
  21. ↑ Sonal Gupta: Artist Blends American & Islamic Dress Code For 'Burka Barbie' In: thequint.com, April 12, 2017.
  22. ↑ Gabriela Walde: Burqa Barbies and red high heel shoes. In: morgenpost.de. March 15, 2017. Retrieved May 24, 2017 .
  23. ↑ Tom Mustroph: Ulrike and the Burqa Barbies. In: jungewelt.de. May 24, 2017. Retrieved May 25, 2017 .
  24. ↑ Irene Netta, Ursula Keltz: 75 years of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau Munich . Ed .: Helmut Friedel. Self-published by the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-88645-157-7 , p. 228 .
  25. ↑ Haus am Waldsee: 02.02. - 17.03.2002 Beate Passow. In: germangalleries.com. September 11, 2001. Retrieved May 27, 2017 .
  26. ^ House of Art - Detail. In: hausderkunst.de. November 23, 2011, accessed May 23, 2017 .
  27. ↑ BEATE PASSOW - MAK Museum Vienna. In: mak.at. October 13, 1999, accessed May 25, 2017 .
  28. ↑ a b c Beate Passow receives the GABRIELE MÜNTER PRIZE 2017 - Bonn. In: art-in.de. September 9, 2007, accessed May 18, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Passow, Beate
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist
DATE OF BIRTH 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Stadtoldendorf , Germany