Bert Neumann

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temporary memorial plaque , Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz 1, in Berlin-Mitte

Bert Neumann (born November 9, 1960 in Magdeburg ; † July 30, 2015 ) was a German artist, set designer and costume designer .

Life

Neumann grew up in East Berlin and graduated from high school in 1979. He then worked as a stage technician at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz before starting to work in the photo archive of the performing arts department of the Academy of Arts (East). From 1980 to 1985 he studied at the Berlin-Weißensee School of Art and graduated with a "very good" diploma for stage and costume design. He was then committed to the Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam for three years , but the contract was canceled by mutual agreement after only two seasons.

With the sale of self-printed T-shirts, which he designed together with Lenore Blievernicht, both then toured the GDR between Leipzig, Dresden, Warnemünde and Wismar. In 1986 and 1988 Lenore Blievernicht gave birth to their sons Leonard and Silvester.

Since 1988 Neumann has worked as a freelance artist. In the same year the first collaboration with Frank Castorf took place at the Volksbühne in Berlin, where they staged Schiller's robbers together . In 1989 Neumann's first exhibition, Werk III, The Silence of the Sirens , which he had developed together with the painter Volker Mehner , took place in the “White Elephant” gallery. In 1990 Neumann founded the autonomous graphic office "LSD" together with Lenore Blievernicht and Susanne Schuboth, who moved to the Netherlands after two years. This subsequently designed the Volksbühne's image-building marketing - from the program slip (instead of the booklet) to the “running wheel” .

Neumann was responsible for the landmarks of the Volksbühne, such as the signet or "perimeter advertising".

Since 1992 he has been the chief set designer at the Volksbühne on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. In the following years Neumann worked a. a. together with the directors Thomas Langhoff , Peter Konwitschny , Christoph Schlingensief and Leander Haußmann , for whose film Sonnenallee he also designed the costumes. In addition to Castorf, Neumann has also worked continuously with the author and director René Pollesch since 2000 , and with Johan Simons since 2003 . Neumann, who was co-director of the Berliner Volksbühne in addition to Castorf until 2010, also worked as a set designer at theaters such as the Opéra National de Paris and the De Nederlandse Opera , Amsterdam.

Bert Neumann was the first spatial artist in German-speaking theater who brought closed spaces and the resulting close-ups (by video) to German-speaking theater. In 1999, his room construction for Shakespeare's Wars of the Roses was just as novel . In the Prater , the second venue of the Volksbühne, he built a “New Globe ” for these productions . On the stage floor, on which the audience looked down from above from the individual boxes, observing themselves and the game happening equally, a carpet acted as a “horizontal curtain”, revealing the view into the underworld of the cellar and covering it again.

With the “Rolling Road Show” (RRS) of the Volksbühne, Neumann and Hannah Hurtzig conceived a form of “drama pleasure” carried out from the theater to the suburbs of the cities. Starting at the EXPO 2000 in Hanover, the RRS toured on to Berlin and then around the world via Saő Paulo, Schwedt, Mühlheim and Sofia. The last time the four RRS cars made a guest appearance was in September 2011 in Tokyo.

In 2003, Neumann's younger son was killed in a fire in his parents' apartment.

In 2009 Neumann was appointed a member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts .

In 2010 Neumann exhibited at Augarten Contemporary in Vienna under the title Setting of a Drama .

Bert Neumann died unexpectedly on July 30, 2015 at the age of 54 in his holiday home in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Works (selection)

Awards

Appreciation

The critic Peter Laudenbach said of Bert Neumann in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that he was "the most important set designer of his generation". Michael Laages judged in Deutschlandradio Kultur that he was "the most formative among the set and interior designers in German theater", that is, what is called "style-defining". The FAZ theater critic Carl Hegemann pointed out that Neumann "set trends and had a strong influence on fashion and advertising".

literature

  • Hannah Hurtzig (Ed.): Imitation of Life. Bert Neumann. Stage sets . Theater der Zeit, Berlin 2001, ISBN 978-3-934344-08-2 .

Web links

Commons : Bert Neumann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Unique theater rooms . On November 9, 2010 on deutschlandradiokultur.de
  2. ↑ Link to LSD ( Memento from July 29, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Daniel Völzke: What does art do, Bert Neumann? . On July 14, 2010 on monopol-magazin.de
  4. ↑ a b Michael Laages: A stage inventor with a penchant for tinsel . On July 31, 2015 on deutschlandradiokultur.de
  5. ↑ Peter Kümmel: Notglück . On May 8, 2010 on zeit.de
  6. ↑ Festival / Tokyo 2011 Preview . On July 9, 2011 at tokyostages.wordpress.com
  7. ↑ Cay Dobberke, Katja Füchsel: Dishwasher in flames - 14-year-old died in an apartment fire . On April 17, 2003 on tagesspiegel.de
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Kralicek: Fairground of emotions. In: FALTER 23/2010.
  9. ^ A b Carl Hegemann : The sovereign of the Volksbühne . On August 1, 2015 on faz.net
  10. ↑ see obituary of the Süddeutsche Zeitung of August 3, 2015
  11. ↑ Season chronicle 2000 to 2010. Retrieved on June 22, 2019 .
  12. ↑ THEATER PRIZE BERLIN STATUTE. April 1, 2019, accessed October 3, 2019 .
  13. ↑ René Pollesch: "Every room you have built tells about this autonomy, dear Bert. And lets you build on your own autonomy." . Laudation for the award of the Hein Heckroth Stage Design Award 2015 on April 26, 2015 on nachtkritik.de
  14. ↑ The evaluation: The greatest honor. In: kultiversum. The culture platform. Retrieved August 25, 2016 .
  15. ↑ "The East Shone" , portrait in the obituary of the Süddeutsche Zeitung of August 3, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Neumann, Bert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist, set designer and costume designer
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH July 30, 2015