Bernhard Theilmann

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Jochen Lorenz, Eberhard Göschel and Bernhard Theilmann (from left to right) 1993

Bernhard Theilmann (born March 28, 1949 in Kurort Rathen ; † August 22, 2017 in Dresden ) was a German poet , publisher and art critic . With Eberhard Göschel , Peter Herrmann , Jochen Lorenz and A. R. Penck , he founded the Obergrabenpresse in 1978 , which existed until 2008.

Life

Theilmann was born in the health resort of Rathen in Saxon Switzerland as the son of a carpenter and a saleswoman. Theilmann grew up next to Eberhard Göschel , with whom he was a lifelong friend and also worked together. Theilmann completed an apprenticeship as a printing machine manufacturer from 1965 to 1967 and attended evening school from 1967, where he made up his Abitur until 1969. He developed a special interest in literature and began writing poetry in the late 1960s.

After completing his apprenticeship, Theilmann initially worked in final assembly at VEB Druckmaschinenwerk Victoria Heidenau . After four months in December 1971, he broke off studying cultural theory and aesthetics at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig , thereby anticipating his de-registration. Theilmann became a toolmaker and also worked as a local reporter for the Sächsisches Tageblatt . When he was to be recruited there by the State Security as an unofficial employee in 1974 , he ended the cooperation. In 1974 Theilmann moved from Leipzig to Dresden, where he lived until his death. From 1979 he worked for the delicatessen manufacturer and exporter VEB Exzellent Dresden as an energy specialist.

House Obergraben 9, namesake of the Obergrabenpresse
Eisenbahnstraße 2, seat of the Obergrabenpresse from 1997 to 2008

Theilmann's Dresden Circle of Friends included numerous artists, such as painter Peter Graf , Peter Herrmann and printer Jochen Lorenz. In 1975, Theilmann created adaptations of Chilean poetry with artist Hernando León . Theilmann, Göschel, Lorenz, Herrmann and A. R. Penck founded the Obergrabenpresse in 1978 , which saw itself as a “self-managed workshop, printing company, publishing house, gallery” and was “an unheard-of and therefore unique company for GDR standards”. It existed until 2008. The first publication of the Obergrabenpresse in 1978 was the edition grafiklyrik 1, limited to 50 copies, with poems by Theilmann and etchings by Göschel. Constantly endeavoring to circumvent government regulations, the Obergrabenpresse started working in 1980 despite the printing ban. Theilmann himself was observed by the State Security and was part of the operational process "Circle", which was directed against critics of Wolf Biermann's expatriation . In his speech on the occasion of the award of the Georg Büchner Prize in 1991, Wolf Biermann named Bernhard Theilmann in a series of “individual good and courageous people who stand for humanity. […] In the times of suppression under Ulbricht and Honecker , there were exactly such people […] I owe them that I am here today, and I stand for them ”.

Missing printing permits were creatively countered by the Obergrabenpresse, so the portfolio of poems (1982) limited to 30 copies of the Obergrabenpresse with works by Theilmann, Michael Wüstefeld and Sascha Anderson as well as the portfolio that would be normal understanding war with poems by Theilmann were published completely as etchings. The portfolio poems were also reviewed in the magazine Die Welt in 1984 , with the volume being portrayed by the author Siegmar Faust as the first illegal work in the GDR and the authors as opponents of the "principles of the GDR constitution ". From the state side, this led to the Schreckenstein operational plan , which aimed to "destroy the role models Göschel, Theilmann and Wüstefeld for the oppositional / negative young people from the fields of visual arts and writers" and which led to police interrogations and wiretaps on several occasions. The Obergrabenpresse was able to circumvent the imposed printing ban on the planned Ritze portfolio , which is limited to 40 copies , by having all of the poets represented wrote their poems by hand to etchings by various artists. The Obergrabenpresse received support from, among others, Werner Schmidt , whose "integrity helps to legalize the anarchist activity of the Obergrabenpresse" and who acquired graphic portfolios for the Dresden Kupferstichkabinett , Lothar Lang and Fritz Löffler . In 1986 and 1989 the Obergrabenpresse realized the large-scale quicksand project with 29 artists. A poem by Theilmann was included in the Edition Bizarre Cities published by Asteris Koutoulas in 1988 , an unofficial journal of the GDR.

During the fall of the Berlin Wall , Theilmann was active as the nationwide spokesman for the United Left and in 1989 founded the Independent Writers Association Dresden (ASSO) with Michael Wüstefeld, Gregor Kunz and Manfred Streubel . Theilmann co-founded the city magazine SAX in 1990 . The Dresdner Journal ; the first official edition was the April 1990 edition, a test zero number appeared a month earlier. Theilmann worked as an editor (until 1993) and author of the SAX and from 1993 also worked as an art critic for the Sächsische Zeitung . Among other things, his articles on the Dresden art scene and young artists are of central importance:

"As a connoisseur of the Dresden art scene, Bernhard Theilmann became an institution, respected, respected and loved by the artists for his knowledgeable, solidarity-based attitude, and feared by certain other people for his alert, uncompromising judgment and steadfastness."

- Rudolf Scholz, 2018

Theilmann traveled to India with Jochen Lorenz in 1995 to open the Shuttle exhibition , which was created in collaboration with the Obergrabenpresse and the ArtsAcre artists' colony . In the following year he traveled to Peru and processed his impressions from Maras in a SAX article. In 2001, Theilmann received a two-month residency and literature grant for the Inner Monologue project at the Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf . When Lutz Fleischer was awarded the Hans-Theo-Richter-Preis in 2005 , “Freund und Kenner” Theilmann gave the laudatory speech. Theilmann was active as an author for Sax until shortly before his death ; His last article in May 2017 was a discussion of the painter Willy Kriegel and the special exhibition of his works at Burgk Castle, which was uncritical despite his Nazi past .

Theilmann had been married since 1972; the marriage had a son. He had also adopted three other sons from his wife's first marriage. As early as the 1990s, he fell ill with Lyme disease , which "repeatedly brutally threw him down in violent attacks and which he could not get rid of". He died in Dresden in 2017 and was buried in the Johannisfriedhof . In 2019, Bernhard Theilmann - The Secret of Bridges was published posthumously, a volume with 90 poems by Theilmann.

Publications (selection)

  • 1978: graphic lyric 1 (poems by Bernhard Theilmann, etchings by Eberhard Göschel; Obergrabenpresse)
  • 1982: poems (poems as etchings by Sascha Anderson, Bernhard Theilmann, Michael Wüstefeld; Obergrabenpresse)
  • 1988: Poem greeting from Wolfplatz 2 in Asteris Koutoulas: Querkette. Dresden 1988 . Special edition of Bizarre Cities magazine
  • 1989: Rust and Rouge (poems by Bernhard Theilmann, etchings by Eberhard Göschel; Obergrabenpresse)
  • 1994: Moments of Landing (essay). In: E. Göschel paintings - gouaches - terracottas , Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 1994.
  • 1995: Shuttle (poems by Bernhard Theilmann et al .; Obergrabenpresse / ArtsArcre)
  • 1998: Contribution to literature and criticism - Dossier Dresden (April 1998)
  • 1999: Under pressure and above water . In: Under pressure . Exhibition catalog Kupferstichkabinett Dresden.
  • 2000: Pirate sails (etchings by Eberhard Göschel and poems by Bernhard Theilmann)
  • 2006: Contribution to A. R. Penck in: Wulf Kirsten and Hans-Peter Lühr (Eds.): Artists in Dresden in the 20th Century - Literary Portraits . Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 2006.
  • 2007: Epilogue in the Dresden Panorama - drawn together by Lutz Fleischer & Petra Kasten , Schlüsselbundverlag, 2007.
  • 2007: What color is my anger (poems 1976 to 1988) in: Horch and Guck , No. 1, 2007, p. 59ff.
  • 2019: The secret of the bridges . Poems. SchumacherGebler, Dresden 2019.

literature

  • Rudolf Scholz: Farewell to Bernhard Theilmann . In: Signum. Sheets for literature & criticism . Volume 19, Issue 1, 2018, pp. 25–33.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Detlef Krell: Biographical Notes - Bernhard Theilmann . Text booklet as a supplement to Hanna-Rose Theilmann, Lothar Sprenger, Bernd Lorenz, Sonja Zimmermann, Eberhard Göschel (eds.), Bernhard Theilmann: The secret of bridges. Poems . SchumacherGebler, Dresden 2019, p. 5.
  2. ↑ a b Hanna-Rose Theilmann, Lothar Sprenger, Bernd Lorenz, Sonja Zimmermann, Eberhard Göschel (eds.), Bernhard Theilmann: The secret of bridges. Poems . SchumacherGebler, Dresden 2019, p. 113.
  3. ↑ a b Detlef Krell: Biographical Notes - Bernhard Theilmann . Text booklet as a supplement to Hanna-Rose Theilmann, Lothar Sprenger, Bernd Lorenz, Sonja Zimmermann, Eberhard Göschel (eds.), Bernhard Theilmann: The secret of bridges. Poems . SchumacherGebler, Dresden 2019, p. 7.
  4. ^ Rudolf Scholz: Farewell to Bernhard Theilmann . In: Signum. Sheets for literature & criticism . Volume 19, Issue 1, 2018, p. 27.
  5. ↑ Detlef Krell: Modern second hand. Art work versus state security: The Albertinum in Dresden shows works by Eberhard Goeschel . In: taz. the daily newspaper , August 29, 1994, p. 17.
  6. ↑ Wolf Biermann's acceptance speech on the occasion of the award of the Georg Büchner Prize in 1991 . deutscheakademie.de, accessed on March 26, 2019.
  7. ↑ Wolf Biermann: The ray of hope in the hideous fatalism of history. Wolf Biermann on Georg Büchner . In: Die Zeit , No. 44, October 25, 1991, p. 73.
  8. ↑ Stasi - Deposed . In: Stern , No. 19, May 6, 1999.
  9. ↑ Sascha Anderson was already working as an IM for the State Security at the time and was not persecuted. See Tomas Gärtner: Sascha Anderson and the unofficial Dresden art scene . In: Dresdner Latest News , April 18, 2002, p. 14.
  10. ↑ cit. According to Birgit Grimm: Popular prices for elite graphics. 20 years Obergrabenpresse Dresden - an exhibition on the art of printing . In: Sächsische Zeitung , May 5, 1999, p. 13.
  11. ↑ Detlef Krell: Biographical Notes - Bernhard Theilmann . Text booklet as a supplement to Hanna-Rose Theilmann, Lothar Sprenger, Bernd Lorenz, Sonja Zimmermann, Eberhard Göschel (eds.), Bernhard Theilmann: The secret of bridges. Poems . SchumacherGebler, Dresden 2019, p. 8.
  12. ↑ Birgit Grimm: Popular prices for elitist graphics. 20 years Obergrabenpresse Dresden - an exhibition on the art of printing . In: Sächsische Zeitung , May 5, 1999, p. 13.
  13. ^ Jens Wonneberger : The Dresden city magazine SAX turns 25 . In: Dresdner Latest News , April 17, 2015.
  14. ↑ The scene never has a break . In: Sächsische Zeitung , June 25, 1998, p. 18.
  15. ^ Rudolf Scholz: Farewell to Bernhard Theilmann . In: Signum. Sheets for literature & criticism . Volume 19, Issue 1, 2018, p. 31.
  16. ↑ Sächsische Kulturstiftung awards artist grants . In: Sächsische Zeitung , November 10, 2001, p. 15.
  17. ↑ Gabriele Gorgas: A street walker out of passion. Lutz Fleischer received the coveted Hans Theo Richter Prize from the Saxon Academy of the Arts . In: Dresdner Latest News , September 1, 2005, p. 8.
  18. ^ Rudolf Scholz: Farewell to Bernhard Theilmann . In: Signum. Sheets for literature & criticism . Volume 19, Issue 1, 2018, p. 32.
  19. ↑ Jens-Uwe Sommerschuh: Counting to infinity. Against the stupid, brown: on the death of the Dresden author Bernhard Theilmann, to whom not only the art scene owes a lot . In: Sächsische Zeitung , August 24, 2017, p. 8.
  20. ↑ Tomas Gärtner: Salto mortale of life. The volume "The Secret of Bridges" shows us Bernhard Theilmann as an unsentimental poet . In: Dresdner Latest News , April 4, 2019, p. 12.
  21. ^ "Literature and Criticism" with "Dossier Dresden" . In: Dresdner Latest News , April 2, 1998, p. 7.
personal data
SURNAME Theilmann, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet, publisher and artist
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Rathen health resort
DATE OF DEATH 22nd August 2017
Place of death Dresden