Günter Sarée

Günter Sarée (born January 16, 1940 in Eger , Czechoslovakia ; † May 20, 1973 in Cologne ) was a German , avant-garde , radically consistent action and concept artist .

life and work

Günter Sarée was born in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. In 1945 his family emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany . Sarée married in 1963 and had two children. From 1965 to 1972 he lived and worked in Munich. He worked in a variety of professions, including market researcher and night porter, to make a living.

Günter Sarée was an autodidact as an artist . Before 1968 he was mainly active as a painter , during which time he devoted himself to constructivist painting .

From 1969 until his death in 1973, Sarée worked as a concept artist. Günter Sarée brought his art into public space and dealt with the dissolution of linguistic terms, for example by having “ word syllables ” transported on passenger trains, “thinking” words through buildings or traveling the “ idea ” alone in an envelope on an airplane wanted to leave. Sarée tried to test the limits of art and to present the pure idea as an art form. His artistic contacts included Dieter Meier , Wolf Vostell and Joseph Beuys , among others .

In September 1971, Sarée founded together with Wolf Vostell and Albrecht / d. the “ Independent Olympic Committee ” to start the Olympic Games not on August 26, 1972, but on August 22, with their own Olympic anthem out of laughter.

After he was diagnosed with cancer towards the end of 1972, the subject of (his) illness and (his) death became more thematic in his art, but not as the sole subject. For example, he sold a signed X-ray of his cancerous lungs, but it was still a matter of concern to him not only to develop an artistic statement on the subject of death. The conversation pictures (tape recordings of conversations of other discussion partners) and the final statements of those involved were free of any death issue.

In 1972 Günter Sarée was invited by Harald Szeemann to participate in Documenta 5 in Kassel in the Individual Mythologies : Self-Presentation - Performances - Activities - Changes department . Sarée was assigned a separate room in the entrance area of ​​the Museum Fridericianum, next to Bazon Brock's visitor school . The artistic concept of his action was: " Project to shorten the conscious lifetime ". Volunteer visitors to documenta 5 were asked to anesthetize themselves for 15 minutes with the help of an anesthetist and have their wakeful consciousness interrupted, to experience deep sleep and profundity and briefly experience the self-experience of “ big sleep ”, the temporary simulation of transience and the transition from life to death. The volunteers should fill out forms beforehand informing them of the usual mortality rate (1: 6000) from such anesthesia. These forms also contained questions about individual wishes with regard to a possibly necessary burial in the event of death, Sarée would also have made himself available as a funeral speaker if desired. After each anesthesia, a certificate should be handed out that confirms the awareness gap and the waiver of 15 minutes awake life. The action was prevented by the Hessian Medical Association, and the anesthetist was threatened with an examination . Sarée's room was then closed and the concept abandoned.

In autumn 1972 he moved to Cologne. From March 1973, Sarée carried a self-designed death shroud with her that read: “I AM GÜNTER SARÉE AND DIE. STAY CALM. CALLING MY FRIENDS ALONE. COLOGNE 235837/249494/445704. NO MATTER HOW I SCREAM OUT OF PAIN, NO DOCTOR MAY FALSE MY DEATH BY DRUGS ”. In the event of a collapse, he wanted to put on the death veil quickly to ensure that he experienced his death in a self-determined and "unadulterated" manner. He died with his family.

Literature and Sources

• Jürgen Claus: "Günter Saree: und", in: "Expansion der Kunst", rowohlts deutsche enzyklopädie, vol. 334/335, p. 61f.
• Exhibition catalog: documenta 5. Survey of Reality - Imagery Today ; Catalog (as a file folder) Volume 1: (Material); Volume 2: (list of exhibits); Kassel 1972
• documenta archive (ed.); Resubmission d5 - A survey of the archive on documenta 1972 ; Kassel / Ostfildern 2001, ISBN 3-7757-1121-X
• Staeck, Klaus (Ed.): Questioning the Documenta or art should stay beautiful ; Göttingen 1972

Web links

• Materials by and about Günther Sarée in the documenta archive