Festival of Genialer Dilletanten

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The flyer with the participating artists

The event The Great Downfall Show - Festival Genialer Dilletanten took place on September 4, 1981 in the Berlin Tempodrom tent in front of 1,400 spectators. The incorrect spelling of the word “ dilettantes ” compared to the Duden was originally a spelling mistake on the flyer.

event

At this festival, the noise bands, experimental rock bands and artist groups from West Berlin that emerged from punk and post-punk could be seen and heard for the first time, which on the one hand differ from the classical rock music scene and on the other hand from the sterility of classical new music wanted to drop. Among the musicians there were also many visual artists who supported the dominance of realism at the time - both in East Berlin as socialist realism and in West Berlin as critical realism, later wild neo-expressive painting - wanted to oppose something else. The art and gallery scene in West Berlin was almost exclusively geared towards realism. Interdisciplinary, conceptual and art that worked between genres only developed underground. Such performative art, as it became visible, for example, in the concerts of the English band Throbbing Gristle , which also originally came from the arts, performances by Die Tödliche Doris , which moved between rock concert and art performance, were almost exclusively in West Berlin to be seen in subcultural places like Frontkino , Risk or the SO 36 . The artist Martin Kippenberger was temporarily tenant of the SO 36. Die Tödliche Doris also consisted of three art students who studied experimental film design and visual communication. What united the different actors in the Festival of Geniale Dilletanten was the idea of ​​cross-border, open music and art that can develop, show and also metamorphose in a wide variety of forms.

Alex Kögler's band “Wir und das Menschliche EV” with Frieder Butzmann , Sprung Aus Den Wolken , DIN A Testbild with Mark Eins , Die Tödliche Doris with Dagmar Dimitroff, Wolfgang Müller and Nikolaus Utermöhlen , Einstürzende Neubauten with FM unit acted on stage , NU Unruh and Blixa Bargeld . In addition, Westbam (as a member of the band “Kriegsschauplatz Tempodrom” from Münster), Christiane F. ( We children from Bahnhof Zoo ) together with her boyfriend at the time Alexander von Borsig under the band name Sentimentale Jugend , Gudrun Gut , Max Müller , Padeluun and Mark Reeder . And before that, Dr. Motte , still under his real name Matthias Roeingh, with his band DPA (German-Polish Aggression) , a borrowed name from DAF (German-American Friendship) . The long-time director of the panorama at the Berlin Film Festival, Wieland Speck , acted as the presenter of the show.

The big downfall show was the third day of the "BILD + TON im TEMPODROM" festival, organized by Klaus Mabel Aschenneller and Blixa Bargeld.

Continuing effect

The festival gave its name to the volume published by Wolfgang Müller in Merve Verlag . The inclusion of the spelling mistake in the book title is, according to Wolfgang Müller, proof that a “brilliant dilletant” in contrast to a “professional” does not only stand in relation to his “mistakes”, but accepts them as an actual, existing reality and is conscious of them Includes work. This festival made bands like Die Tödliche Doris and Einstürzende Neubauten known to a larger audience. What is not so well known, however, is that some of the later heads of German techno were on stage here for the first time and also contributed with contributions in the book of the same name.

In the 1980s, musicians from Berlin who played against the existing traditions of pop music in the aftermath of this festival called themselves “Geniale Dilletanten”.

In the essay film B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West Berlin 1979–1989 around Mark Reeder from 2015, preserved documentary film scenes by artists from the time and also from the festival with connecting re-shot material were processed into a documentation of culture and time.

Event for the exhibition, 2015 in the Haus der Kunst, Munich: Roderich Fabian (Bayerischer Rundfunk) Diedrich Diederichsen, Michaela Melián, Wolfgang Müller (from left to right)

The Goethe-Institut took up the topic in 2015 and, together with those involved at the time, designed an exhibition ingenious dilletants with photos, film clips and music videos, which aims to convey West Berlin's underground culture at the beginning of the 1980s on a tour around the world. In the summer of 2015, the exhibition in Munich's Haus der Kunst was combined with paintings by visual artists from the West Berlin subculture. In the Hamburg Museum of Art and Commerce , the exhibition was highlighted in spring 2016 by the living room installation by Berlin design critic Christian Borngräber with his own works and those of artist friends such as Stiletto , Die Tödliche Doris , Andreas Brandolini , aerobatics , etc. v. a. expanded.

documentation

literature

  • Wolfgang Müller: Ingenious dilletantes . Merve, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-88396-021-7 .
  • Wolfgang Müller: Subculture West Berlin 1979 - 1989. Free time . Philo Fine Art, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-86572-671-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Müller 1982, p. 9
  2. ↑ Goethe-Institut: West Berlin - the island of freedom , March 2015
  3. ^ House of Art: "Geniale Dilletanten". Subculture of the 1980s in Germany , June 2015
  4. ^ "The subculture is ready for the museum", review and illustration of the Borngräber room as part of the exhibition "Geniale Dilletanten" in the Hamburg Museum for Art and Commerce, Hamburger Wochenblatt, St. Georg edition, from January 26, 2016.