Gerdt Marian Siewert
Gerdt Marian Siewert (born March 25, 1920 in Berlin ; † November 1, 1992 in Hamburg ) initially worked as a stage and press photographer in East Berlin . From 1968 he worked in Hamburg as a painter and graphic artist in the style of magical realism and created works with time-critical, often satirical content. He developed the technique of complementary realism, painting in complementary colors .
Life
Siewert was born the son of a tailor and a seamstress. He completed his apprenticeship as a repro photographer in 1939 with the assistant examination. In 1940 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and served in the Air Force (Wehrmacht) . At the end of 1945 he came back to Berlin-Pankow . From 1951 to 1953 he completed a partial course at the University of Fine Arts in West Berlin , where he was one of Professor W. Tank's students.
For the years 1949 to 1959 he stated that his profession was “stage and press photographer”. He was a house photographer at Circus Barlay, the state circus of the GDR , and worked for various theaters and ice shows. In the period from 1951 to 1959 he documented the productions of the German State Opera in Berlin on over 300 photo films . In 1956 Siewert encountered difficulties in having his “professional ID for freelance artists” (sic) extended.
In 1959 he fled to West Berlin. 1960 to 1962 he worked as a photo journalist at Contipress in Hamburg. A back problem made it impossible to continue working as a press photographer. From then on he worked as a freelance "painter and satirical graphic artist".
He exhibited pictures and graphics for the first time at the IV Salon International in Monte Carlo in 1963. He drew for the satirical magazines pardon and Spontan and participated in over 200 exhibitions at home and abroad. He did not seek recognition from the current art business, whose exponents he liked to make the target of his satire ( Joseph Beuys , Hermann Nitsch , Bazon Brock , Andy Warhol ). For a committed artist he saw the "worthwhile task [...] of the 'nest dirtier'".
plant
Stage photos
In the 1950s, Siewert documented what was happening on all the stages in East Berlin in technically perfect artificial light photos, whereby he demonstrated a sure feeling for the artistically most expressive moments. He was an accredited theater photographer at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, but also took photos in other speaking and music theaters. His recordings of Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle in the Berliner Ensemble with Helene Weigel and Ernst Busch (1954) are contemporary testimonies to theater history.
His preference was for fast-moving events on various stages, such as ballet, ice revue and the circus, where he captured outstanding moments through empathy, concentration and technical mastery. The stage celebrities he portrayed in guest performances in the years of departure after the war covers a wide spectrum: Louis Armstrong , Josephine Baker , Ina Bauer , Ria and Paul Falk, Harald Kreutzberg , Marcel Marceau , David Oistrach , Galina Ulanowa and others. v. a.
painting
Siewert's first painting from the late 1960s and early 1970s was based on Giorgio Chirico's pittura metafisica and works by other “magically realistic” painting Surrealists, which he, however, increasingly oriented towards social criticism. He turned dreamy and nightmarish landscapes into end-time scenarios, city silhouettes into ruins, cities into anthills, people into objects. In addition to these generally critical subjects, there was a satirical orientation; Sometimes also personal, especially when it came to the renowned art business (e.g. Andy Warhol sits in his Campbell's box “In the ivory tower”).
Siewert targeted the amusement and dumbing down of the masses through sexualization, shallow entertainment, thrills and hollow phrases. The style in these pictures is almost photo-realistic; it generated criticism through surprising perspectives, cold accuracy and meaningful titles. For all of his pictures, the intention was to disrupt the viewing and thinking habits of the viewer and to steer them in new directions (see quote).
From 1970 Siewert developed the technique of "complementary realism", as he called it. He painted pictures in whole or in parts ("half-complementary") in the complementary colors, as we know them from color negatives. This resulted in unusual, often threatening, sometimes magical color assignments. In addition, there are bizarre deep structures, as the originally dark colors move into the foreground complementarily as light ones (see quote and picture examples).
graphic
Satire dominated Siewert's graphics . He created individual pictures, but also often series in the manner of a picture sheet. The hand-colored feather lithographs were products for sale and did not match the artistic quality of the paintings.
Gerdt Marian Siewert died on November 1st, 1992 in Hamburg. In 2010 his artistic estate was handed over to the Forum for the Estates of Artists in Hamburg.
Quote
With my complementary realism, this “alienation” of colors causes the viewer to become irritated, which - assuming sensitivity - is supposed to evoke the desired associations. My “complementary” color palette had to be worked out experimentally. Hamilton (black and white!) Has already used the negative effect, but I want more and agree with Brecht: "Realistic means: uncovering the social causal complex ..."
("Complementary - Realism?" In the exhibition catalog for the exhibition "Retrospect" in the dreigroschen gallery Berlin, 1984)
Exhibitions
- GM Siewert - Oil Paintings, Gallery Das Bild, Berlin 1968
- GMSiewert - Magical Realism, Galerie am Abend, Munich 1970–71
- From ivory to soup tin tower, Galerie Schulze Theile, Münster 1972
- Oil paintings - prints, Die Schnecke, Hamburg, 1975
- From Armstrong to Zacchini - circus, ice revue, ballet and theater photos from 1949 to 1959, photo gallery Staatliche Landesbildstelle Hamburg 1982
- Review, dreigroschen gallery, Berlin 1984
- Gerdt M. Siewert - From chronicler of the stage world to critic of the world stage. Photography, graphics, oil paintings, forum for bequests, Künstlerhaus Sootbörn, Hamburg 2011
literature
- Elisabeth Axmann-Mocanu (ed.): Artist in Hamburg . Christians Verlag Hamburg 1982, ISBN 3-7672-0749-4 .
- Harald Budde: With the means of painting - The Berlin painter Gerdt Marian Siewert . Blickpunkt Berlin, August 1974, pp. 48–49.
- Jürgen Schmidt: A homeless leftist avows himself . Frankfurter Rundschau and Stuttgarter Zeitung, September 19-20, 1980.
- Axel-Alexander Ziese: General encyclopedia of artists in the fine and creative arts of the late XX. Century Volume 3, Edition 1992/93. Nürnberg arte factum publishing company, 1993, ISBN 3-923326-82-3 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hannelore Offner, Klaus Schroeder: Restricted - Excluded: Studies by the SED State Research Association at the Free University of Berlin , Akademie Verlag, 2000, ISBN 978-3-05-003348-8 , p. 671 (available from Google Books)
- ↑ PERSONNEL: Franz Josef Strauss, Walter Scheel, Joseph Beuys, Gerdt Marian Siewert, Otto von Habsburg, Diether Posser, Nicolae Ceausescu, Erich von Däniken, Peter Krohn . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1978 ( online ).
- ↑ GMSiewert: Text on the exhibition Aspects of committed art in the Kunstverein Hamburg from September 13th-11th. October 1974
- ↑ Harald Budde: Engagiert und uncombequem , Die Tageszeitung (taz), September 13, 1984.
- ↑ Harald Budde: With the means of painting , p. 49.
- ↑ Jürgen Schmidt: A homeless leftist .
- ↑ Jürgen Schmidt: A homeless leftist .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Siewert, Gerdt Marian |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter and photographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 25, 1920 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 1, 1992 |
| Place of death | Hamburg |