The bathtub

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The interdisciplinary cabaret The Bathtub was the merger of a group of different artists in the summer of 1949. The venue for the experimental program with a surrealist character was the Femina-Bar in Nürnberger Str. 50–56 in Berlin. The artist collective Die Bath only existed for half a year. In 1950 the old line-up split up: the two successor cabarets, Die Quallenpeitsche and Das Atelier, were created .

history

The artist cabaret The Bathtub was inaugurated on June 25, 1949 with a pre-opening. The artists brought improvisations to the stage and invited the audience to join in. The bathtub's first official program took place on July 2, 1949. From then on, performances were continuously held on Saturdays.

From July 28, 1949, the bathtub also organized literary and musical evenings every Thursday: Johannes Huebner was the initiator of the literary orientation, and Theo Goldberg directed the musical part . The last performance of the bathtub took place on December 7, 1949.

From February 4, 1950 to August 5, 1950, the follow-up project The Jellyfish Whip continued its cabaret program in the rooms of the Femina Bar. The literary and musical evenings continued. As of 15 July 1950 to October 1950, the successor cabaret established Atelier to Katja Meirowsky first in the opera cellar, later in the Galerie Bremer .

content

The joint project Die Bath included both spontaneous improvisation on the stage and artistic examination of concepts from the international avant-garde. It became a creative forum for the open interplay of the disciplines of painting, literature, dance and music. For their unconventional goals, the artists of the bathtub used provocative ideas that were fed by the poles 'tradition' and 'awakening'. Experiences of contemporary reality were incorporated as well as a return to artistic trends from before 1933 and above all to surrealism .

The bathtub took up the literature and art of modernism denounced under National Socialism and reinterpreted them. In a climate of openness, the artists made use of the space they had regained; they worked together on an equal footing. This created personal descriptions of the state of affairs with poetic power. The art of the various disciplines was made tangible as a current, expressive and lively project.

program

The bathtub program shows a variety of themes and artistic forms. A cabaret evening was made up of eight to ten self-contained program numbers. Special appearances were even planned for the breaks. The so-called “poème illustré” were among the specialties of the bathtub : the merging of a poem (mostly of surrealist origin) with an avant-garde painting that functions as a stage prospect. Text and image are transferred into a scenic action. Both paintings by well-known artists such as Giorgio de Chirico or Salvador Dalí as well as own paintings serve as templates .

Art should be shown as a living, open project. In this context, the "danced pictures" were created, in which the dancers of the collective transferred well-known paintings of classical modernism into motion and thus made them tangible for the audience in three dimensions. Own texts, primarily those of the house poet Huebner, were mostly presented as intonation texts with a pastoral gesture. Often one's own texts were blended with well-known literature and were thus to be understood as a parody.

One of the main pillars of cabaret was also the staging of absurd scenes, in which black humor played an important role. On the musical side, Theo Goldberg's short operas in particular represented a funny innovation: a musical theater with limited resources in which well-known myths and operas were reduced to a minimum.

Participating artists

The main founders of the bathtub are the painter Alexander Camaro , the painter Katja Meirowsky , her husband Karl Meirowsky , who has a doctorate in humanities, and the writer Johannes Hübner . The artists who regularly work at cabaret include the painters Wolfgang Frankenstein , Hans Laabs and Paul Rosié as well as the sculptor Waldemar Grzimek and his then wife Christa Grzimek (later Cremer), the dancers Iris Barbura and Liselore Bergmann, the musician Theo Goldberg and the author and Translator Joachim Klünner. The actors are also the partners of the participating artists such as Margot Schmidt, Ute Hübner, Ursula Goldberg and Katja Meirowsky's younger brother, Rolek Casella. Artist friends with temporary participation in the bathtub program are Werner Heldt , Mac Zimmermann , Jeanne Mammen , Lothar Klünner , Unica Zürn and Heinz Trökes .

After the dissolution of the cabaret The Bathtub , the follow-up project Die Quallenpeitsche artists such as B. Jeanne Mammen, Hans Thiemann, Johannes Huebner, Ute Huebner, Lothar Klünner, Joachim Klünner and Theo Goldberg. At the other follow-up cabaret Das Atelier participate z. B. Katja and Karl Meirowsky, Hans Laabs and Rolek Casella.

Exhibitions

  • 1975: When the war was over, Art in Germany 1945–1950 , Akademie der Künste , Berlin (various exhibits on the artist cabaret The Bathtub )
  • 1989: Artist from the circle of the painter's cabaret Die Bath , Galerie Lippeck, Berlin-Hermsdorf
  • 2014: BERLIN SURREAL… Camaro and the artists' cabaret The Bathtub , Camaro House, Berlin

literature

  • "BERLIN SURREAL ... Camaro and the artist cabaret Die Bath " . Edited by the Alexander and Renata Camaro Foundation and Dagmar Schmengler. Nicolai, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-89479-857-4 .
  • Elisabeth Lenk (ed.): The bathtub. An artist cabaret from the early post-war period. With an afterword by Lothar Klünner. Hentrich, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-926175-88-5 .
  • Eckhart Gillen : The painter's cabaret in the "bathtub". A collage. In: Eckhart Gillen, Diether Schmidt (ed.): Zone 5. Art in the four-sector city 1945–1951. Nishen, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-88940-113-9 , pp. 210-224.
  • Johannes Hübner: Chronicle of the "bathtub". In: Lothar Klünner (Ed.): Im Spiegel. Johannes Huebner in memory. Jeanne Mammen Society, Berlin 1983, pp. 79–97.

Individual evidence

  1. " The bathtub . An artist's cabaret from the early post-war period ”, ed. by Elisabeth Lenk, Berlin 1991, pp. 173–199.
  2. a b "BERLIN SURREAL ... Camaro and the artists' cabaret The Bathtub ", ed. by the Alexander and Renata Camaro Foundation and Dagmar Schmengler, Berlin 2014.
  3. a b “Profiles of the exhibited artists”, in: “BERLIN SURREAL… Camaro and the artist cabaret The Bathtub ”, ed. by the Alexander and Renata Camaro Foundation and Dagmar Schmengler, Berlin 2014, pp. 137–145.

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