Gerry Schum

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Gerhard Alexander "Gerry" Schum (born September 15, 1938 in Cologne ; † March 23, 1973 in Düsseldorf ) was a German cameraman , filmmaker and video producer . He was the initiator and producer of a television gallery that was broadcast on German television around 1970 . Schum is considered to be the founder of the term Land Art .

Life

After studying medicine in 1958, Schum enrolled at the German Institute for Film and Television (DIFF) in Munich from 1961 to 1963 and organized underground film festivals at the same time. In 1964 he moved to Berlin and in 1966, together with Harun Farocki , Wolfgang Petersen and Helke Sander, belonged to the first class of the newly founded German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb), which he left in 1967.

During his time in Berlin he realized two documentaries (broadcasts) for Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR ): “6. San Marino Art Biennale ”and“ Consumer Art - Art Consumption ”. The theme of the Biennale was “New Techniques of Education”, while individual sections dealt with “Environment” and “Films by Artists”. Gerhard Richter , Bernhard Höke and Günther Uecker were invited from Germany . The film “Consumer Art - Art Consumption” (16 mm, b / w, sound, 29:32 minutes), shot with the help of art historian Hannah Weitemeier and artist friend Bernhard Höke, dealt with industrially produced works of art and limited edition objects. It “[…] the path of a work of art from its beginnings in the studio to the product on the wall of a gallery [accompanied]. All involved makers, the artist, engineer and gallery owner had an equal say. The work of art was understood as part of the social process. "

Since Schum produced his contributions "on site" with the participating artists or with them in the field, he acquired a mobile home , which he equipped technically and which served him as a mobile office, a production facility, as well as a living room and bedroom. He was one of the first owners of a cell phone and used it to make appointments with the artists.

In 1969 he produced Jan Dibbets' project for WDR, entitled TV As a Fireplace , which consisted of a filmed open fire . In the run-up to Christmas, it was broadcast every evening on seven days by WDR 3 at the end of the broadcast for three minutes on the newly introduced color television. The contributions were among the first unannounced and uncommented artistic interventions to be broadcast on television.

TV gallery

“The idea of ​​the television gallery is to only show art objects. I don't think there is any point in showing the faces and hands of artists in close-up or filming the 'atmosphere' of a studio. The only thing that should be seen is the artwork. And there is no comment. During the entire 38 minutes of the program 'Land Art', not a single word is spoken. No explanation. I think that an art object created in relation to the medium of television does not need a spoken explanation. "

- Gerry Schum

Between 1967 and 1970, Schum designed the television gallery, again together with Hannah Weitemeier and artist friend Bernhard Höke, which was designed for four episodes. The WDR editor Wibke von Bonin , the exhibition organizer Harald Szeemann and Schum's wife Ursula Wevers were helpful. “The television gallery only consists of a series of television broadcasts, which means that the television gallery is more or less an intellectual institution that only becomes reality at the moment it is broadcast on television [...] One of our ideas is the communication of art instead of Ownership of art objects. ” (Gerry Schum). With the television gallery he intended to free art from the “art aura of museums and galleries” and to create a new social forum for discussion.

Country Art

In the first program, entitled Land Art , broadcast in April 1969 by Deutsche Fernsehen ( Sender Freies Berlin ) , works by eight artists were presented without a word being spoken in the 38-minute broadcast. Schum shot some of the short contributions in unusual locations. In the impressive panorama of the Mojave Desert , he let a camera circle around an axis, while the artist Walter De Maria, walking between two white lines towards the horizon, became smaller and smaller. At the beginning of the broadcast, the audience saw an exhibition opening simulated in the studio as a staging . Schum left no doubt that the contributions he sent were themselves artistic works in their own right, "exhibits". The contributions in detail:

  • Richard Long , Walking A Straight 10 Miles Forward And Back Shooting Every Half Mile , Dartmoor, England, January 20, 1969, 16 mm film, color, sound, 6:03 minutes
  • Barry Flanagan , A Hole in the Sea , Scheveningen, Holland, February 1969, 16 mm film, color (opening and closing credits b / w), sound, 3:44 minutes
  • Dennis Oppenheim , Timetrack Following the Time, Border Between Canada and USA , Fort Kent, March 17, 1969, Canada 2 p.m. / USA 3 p.m., 16 mm film, sound, 2:06 minutes
  • Robert Smithson , Fossil Quarry Mirror with Four Mirror Displacements , Cayuga Lake Region in New York State, March 1969, 16 mm film, b / w, sound, 3:12 minutes
  • Marinus Boezem , Sand Fountain , Camargue, France, January 1969, 16 mm film, b / w, sound, 4:11 minutes
  • Jan Dibbets , 12 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective , Dutch Coast, February 1969, 16 mm film, color (opening and closing credits), sound, 7:32 minutes
  • Walter De Maria , Two Lines Three Circles on the Desert , Mojave Desert, California, USA, March 1969, 16 mm film, b / w, sound, 4:46 minutes
  • Michael Heizer , Coyote , Coyote Dry Lake, California, USA, March 1969, 16 mm film, color, sound, 4:20 minutes

Heizer withdrew his post after the first broadcast.

Identifications

The second series of the TV gallery was broadcast by Südwestfunk Baden-Baden (SWF) on November 30, 1970, 10:50 p.m. for Erste Deutsche Fernsehen. The show began with a six-minute paper-read introduction by Schum. Five of the contributions came from Germany, one from France, two each from England and the Netherlands, and four from the United States. The 50-minute film with the title “Identifications” showed actions by Joseph Beuys , Gilbert & George , Mario Merz , Ulrich Rückriem , Reiner Ruthenbeck , Daniel Buren , Lawrence Weiner and Richard Serra, among others . The features editor Petra Kipphoff described this second TV gallery in Die Zeit : “19 'objects' were shown, mini-films lasting an average of two minutes, on which, for example, the following could be seen: Joseph Beuys, sitting in front of a television set, worked his head with boxing gloves , then scans the felt-glued television with a blood sausage, chops it up, rolls the television into the corner; Rainer Ruthenbeck, with an angry grip, balled up black carbon paper in heaps; Ger van Elk carefully shaves the spines off a cactus; Klaus Rinke overturns a tin barrel with water; and so on [...]. ” Kipphoff came to the critical conclusion that half of the time was filled with“ irrelevant jokes ”and a further part of the artist contributions got stuck in the“ pure pose ”. Already Identifications was for the most part by the city of Hanover was "Experiment Hannover street art" funded by the event. For the production of his third TV gallery under the title Artscapes , to which the artist Christo was also to be invited, Schum no longer met with approval from the broadcasters.

It was not until seven years later, on the occasion of documenta 6 in Kassel in 1977 , at which film, photography and video were represented as independent media, that German television started a comparable attempt. Together with the exhibition organizer Wulf Herzogenrath , who was responsible for the video section of documenta , Wibke von Bonin (WDR III) and Hansgeorg Dickmann ( Hessischer Rundfunk ) developed a nine-part concept in which both broadcasters produced films from video Artists with a length of 30 to 45 minutes were broadcast.

Video gallery

From 1970, Schum began producing video films instead of 16 mm films. For this purpose, Schum acquired a video system consisting of a mixer, two black-and-white cameras, a stationary and a portable recorder through what was then JVC - Bell & Howell. With this he set up a studio in his mobile home. The price for the system was around 100,000 DM, which at the time was the equivalent of an average single-family home. This put Schum under enormous pressure to repay the debts he had taken on for the video technology. The problem with that was that video devices were practically non-existent in private households at the time, so he could hardly find any buyers for his video tapes from among private art collectors. The gallery owner Konrad Fischer , who was represented at the Cologne art market in 1970, provided him with a bunk in which he could show his video program. In October 1971, Schum and Ursula Wevers opened a shop gallery at Ratinger Strasse 37 in Düsseldorf, the video gallery schum , in which he produced and distributed video editions by artists of the international avant-garde . It was the first gallery of its kind in the world. “Schum sells the video tapes at prices between 550 (Rinke) and 1,800 marks (Buren), the circulation is unlimited. Limited edition video tapes cost between 3000 (Ruthenbeck) and 9800 marks (Beuys). The ribbons are equipped with the artists' signed certificates, ” reported Die Zeit in 1972 under the heading“ Market Notes ”. Schum set out with his television gallery to create works of film art that should only exist at the moment of broadcast. With his work, consisting of video films for sale, "[...] he set about placing it exactly where, in the opinion of many people, it had no place: within an art practice regulated by market laws".

In 1972 the Essen museum director Paul Vogt suggested setting up a video studio in the Folkwang Museum , whose curator Schum should become.

In 1973, at the age of 34, the artist took his own life in his mobile home on the banks of the Rhine in Düsseldorf with an overdose of sleeping pills.

Between 2003 and 2005, various European museums, including the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, showed a retrospective of his work. His video recordings are now regarded as outstanding documents of an avant-garde that was largely unsecured at the time, but is now considered a classic of contemporary art. His original films and video works are kept in the collections of important museums.

Exhibitions (selection)

literature

  • Christiane Fricke: All these little hearts will one day belong to you: the TV gallery Gerry Schum, 1968–1970 and the productions of the video gallery Schum, 1970–1973 . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1996
  • Ursula Wevers, Barbara Hess, Ulrike Groos (eds.): READY TO SHOOT - TV gallery Gerry Schum / videogalerie schum , (exhibition catalog). Snoeck, Cologne 2003 (English edition 2004)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Die Zeit, No. 21/1967
  2. ↑ a b c Gislind Nabakowski: reflections on public television in the Federal Republic . In: Ars Electronica , 1986, Vol. 2.
  3. ^ Wulf Herzogenrath (ed.): Video art in Germany 1963–1982 . Stuttgart, 1982, pp. 55-65
  4. ↑ Uwe M. Schneede: The history of art in the 20th century: From the avant-garde to the present . CH Beck, 2001, ISBN 978-3-406-48197-0 , p. 233
  5. ^ A b c Karl Ruhrberg, Klaus Honnef, u. a .: 20th century art . Taschen, 2000, Volume 2, ISBN 3-8228-8802-8 , p. 595
  6. ^ Dieter Daniels: Art as a broadcast: from telegraphy to the Internet . CH Beck, 2002, ISBN 978-3-406-49509-0 , p. 247
  7. ↑ Petra Kipphoff: Pure gesture . In: Die Zeit , No. 49/1970
  8. ↑ Brigitte Kölle: The art of exhibiting. Investigations into the work of the artist and art mediator Konrad Lueg / Fischer . (PDF) Dissertation, 2005, p. 177
  9. ↑ Market Notes . In: Die Zeit , No. 6/1972
  10. ↑ DIED . In: Der Spiegel . No. 14 , 1973, p. 188 ( online ).
  11. ↑ Kunsthalle Hamburg (media collection) ( Memento of the original from February 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de
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personal data
SURNAME Schum, Gerry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schum, Gerhard Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German video artist
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH March 23, 1973
Place of death Dusseldorf