Hans Salentin

Hans Salentin (born June 22, 1925 in Düren , † July 21, 2009 in Cologne ). He lived in Cologne since 1954. As a sculptor and painter , Hans Salentin still occupies an outstanding position among the artists in post-war Germany.

Hans Salentin, the painter, draftsman , constructor and fitter, the inventor of "technoid fictions" - as the title of his exhibition in Nuremberg 1972 - was one of the most important German visual artists after 1945. He has been a representative of the artistic avant-garde from the beginning until today .

stylistics

During and after his studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1959 to 1964, Salentin was initially a member of "Gruppe 53", like his fellow students Heinz Mack and Otto Piene , with whom he was associated throughout his life.

The increasing narrowing of Group 53 to tachism led him, together with Mack and Piene, to set up the now famous, legendary evening exhibitions in Gladbacher Straße in the Düsseldorf district of Unterbilk . These exhibitions, the impetus of which ultimately found decisive expression in the artist group ZERO in 1957 , represent a significant part of recent German art history. "Roof tile reliefs" are his excellent contribution to exhibitions at that time.

Then, loosening up, moving in his own direction, first zinc sheet reliefs emerge, later fully plastic objects made of cast aluminum parts. He is invited to documenta 6 and shows there e.g. B. the "moon cart", a great example of his stylistic principle , his design principle of collage , assemblage and at the same time for the object of his representations: utopia .

Over the years, Salentin has always remained true to this principle of montage, the collage , for which he makes use of metallic or photographic finds, including those made of plastic , and integrates them in free, fictional figurations. Even in his drawings, small sections or parts are mounted that stop the flow of the line and break the organic course of the pen and the brush. In literature, his artistic principle is referred to as that of transforming the “ objet trouvé ” into the “objet corrigé”.

Salentin's work has continued to develop based on this principle, a special level of the “ collage ” principle . With more and more new ideas he comes to grips with the usual panel painting , the relief, the sculpture , always finding other ways to combine things and artistic techniques in two and three dimensions into unexpected aesthetic symbiosis .

When Salentin makes use of modern materials or media for the presentation, he not only succeeds in creating a collage of the subject as a result of the work of art through the simultaneous use of different materials and artistic techniques , but also through the use of the principle of technical reproducibility for the attentive viewer Sequence , a previously unknown collage of modern techniques and media as a process form of artistic design understandable.

biography

Life dates

Hans Salentin was born as the second son of Paul and Helene Salentin on June 22, 1925 in Düren. He attended the Stiftisches Gymnasium in Düren from 1936 and initiated contacts with the art teachers and artists Josef Offergeld and Walter Recker. He was committed to military service on the Russian border in 1943. In June 1944 he was taken prisoner of war in Siberia . He returned to Düren in August 1945 and was seriously ill.

Salentin attended from 1947 to 1949, the state art school of Jo Strahn in Dusseldorf-Niederkassel. In 1954 he graduated from the Düsseldorf Art Academy in the painting class of Paul Bindel ; among others with Heinz Mack , Otto Piene , Raimund Girke , which he started in 1950. In 1954 he was employed as an art teacher at the Düren grammar school. He later moved to Cologne, where he was employed as an art teacher at the traditional high school in Cologne-Mülheim. From 1955 to 1958 Salentin, Mack and Piene worked in a shared studio building in Düsseldorf-Bilk. The name ZERO was created in 1957 as part of the evening exhibitions; Salentin took part in exhibitions of the ZERO group until 1965. He became a member of Group 53 in 1957. He taught at the Schiller High School in Cologne-Sülz in 1959. In the same year he married Ursula Hansen, she is a high school teacher and author of the biography Anna Amalia: pioneer of the Weimar Classics . (Cologne: Böhlau, 1996 and 2001. Paperback edition. Munich: Piper, 2007). His first solo exhibition was held in 1962 in Düsseldorf at Schmela. In 1976, he became a member of the German Association of Artists . In 1977 there was an invitation to documenta 6 in Kassel . For health reasons, he retired from the art business from 1981 to 1989. In 1995 he started again with the plastic work.

Until shortly before his death, Hans Salentin lived and worked withdrawn and concentrated in his house in Cologne-Marienburg. He spoke of "100,000 sheets as a life's work" .

Thoughts on artistic development

The young years

Hans Salentin was born in Düren in 1925 , where he grew up and went to high school. His mother, a musical person, raises him and his brother, who means a lot to him, strictly Catholic. The father, a teacher , who also works as head of the Kreisbildstelle (Kreisbildstelle) in the Düren district , lets him participate in his hobby , photography , which he pursues with great artistic ambition.

For many years Salentin was specifically promoted by his art teacher at the grammar school, Walter Recker (the Düren artists Ulrich Rückriem and Walter Cüppers should also be mentioned as his pupils ). This contact has existed for a very long time - from the time in Düsseldorf at the school of Jo Strahn (also Cüppers) until the death of Walter Recker. So it can be said: The talent of the young Hans Salentin was recognized and promoted early, his skills and abilities were developed under expert and educational guidance.

Hans Salentin was called up for military service in 1943 , was at home on vacation in mid-1944 and returned to the front in June just in time to join the Soviet offensive in the central section of the front and become a prisoner of war. Hans Salentin is driven through the streets of Moscow with his comrades , put on display and shipped to Novosibirsk . Existence in the camp is characterized by forced labor in the ammunition factory , unbearable dirt, illness, decay and death. In August 1945 the camp doctor found that the prisoner Salentin was too weak to continue working, and he was given a release certificate. He returns to Düren seriously ill. While still on the hospital bed, he is handed drawing utensils. - The decision for artistic expression has probably already been finally made here.

The academy years and beyond

From 1959 to 1976 Salentin taught art as the director of studies at the Schiller-Gymnasium in Cologne. Due to his war experience, Hans Salentin was against any coercion. He gave his students a lot of freedom. Those who did not want to paint or draw at Hans Salentin were allowed to do other things during the art class. Salentin taught students how to use pen and brush; he did not focus on theory and image descriptions. With students from higher grades, Salentin occasionally moved from the art room to the neighboring music room. There he sat down at the grand piano and played for a potpourri of jazz and popular music from the 50s and 60s.

In May 1950 Salentin had the first encounter with his fellow students Heinz Mack and Otto Piene at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . This encounter should give direction to his artistic development. A friendship developed, which showed an aesthetic and artistic cohesion in “Gruppe 53” and later in “ ZERO ”.

Even if ZERO, like many others, was only a short-lived artists' association, an artist group had formed that made art history in Germany in the early 1960s and later also abroad. The issue of the magazine "ZERO III" was consequently celebrated at the same time as their solemn funeral in a great happening with hundreds of people in front of the Schmela Gallery on July 5, 1961 . The protagonists of the group felt only too well that such an artistically revolutionary attitude like hers could not be preserved for a long time any more than revolutionary ideas survive in everyday political life.

For Hans Salentin, the stopping, the repetition of the design language of ZERO became obvious. He differentiates himself and reorientates himself through a "utopian realism " in the turn towards assemblage and full sculpture.

Hans Salentin takes up the conceptual aesthetic thread of ZERO, that of the avant-garde, by choosing the zeitgeist and the material as the starting point of his work and then leading it over an established border. He does not stop at a “Zeitgeist reflection”. He once said: "The world is a dump." And "I thank the engineers of the world who have created such great shapes." He leads us in a very poetic, aesthetic way of working using the stylistic device of alienation into new, utopian and absurd ones Art worlds. With the help of alienation, he wants to vividly demonstrate the artificiality of art and its inherent aesthetics. Fine art should no longer be a copy of some kind of reality.

Documenta 6 in 1977, organized by Manfred Schneckenburger, wanted the artists to look around for new materials and try out new media: the photo as a work of art, the performance or even video installations were discovered or rediscovered. The aim of the "media concept" of documenta 6 was to question the status of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Hans Salentin is invited to this documenta.

For the retrospective at the Kölnischer Kunstverein (1990), Hans Salentin decided to bring out an edition of ten etchings with the copper and stone printer Manfred Klement. The design of this edition appears in an edition of 10 etchings in a zinc case, edition of 10 cases. The works are numbered in Arabic. In addition, all prints were published in one edition, numbered in Roman numerals. The cassette is being built by Martin Kätelhön.

Exhibitions

Participation in exhibitions (selection)

• 1949-55, annual exhibition of Düren artists, Leopold-Hoesch-Museum , Düren
• 1957, 1st and 4th evening exhibition, Gladbacher Strasse, Düsseldorf
• 1957, "Gruppe 53", Kunstverein in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
• 1958, 7th evening exhibition, Gladbacher Strasse, Düsseldorf
• 1961 to 1965, with the ZERO group
  • Great Düsseldorf art exhibition, Kunstpalast in the courtyard of honor, Düsseldorf
  • "Edition, Exposition, Demonstration", Galerie Schmela, Düsseldorf
  • Gallery A, Arnheim / NL
  • "IV biennale", San Marino
  • New Vision Center, London
  • Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
  • The Washington Gallery of Modern Art, Washington, DC
• 1962, Anti-Peinture, G 58, Hessenhuis, Antwerp / B
• 1967, "fetisch-form", Haus am Waldsee, Berlin
• 1972, "Scene Rhein-Ruhr", Folkwang Museum Essen
• 1974, "Naivety of the Machine", Frankfurter Kunstverein
• 1975, "The Adapted Person", Kunsthalle Mannheim
• 1974, "Ars intermedia. 25 artistes allemands", Galeries Les Contemporais, Genval-Lac / BE
• 1977, "Vehicles, Utopian Design", documenta 6, Kassel
• 1991, "Aluminum - The Metal of Modernity", City Museum Cologne
• 1993, "Bildlicht" - Wiener Festwochen , Museum of the 20th Century, Vienna
• 1995, "The Story of Prometheus", Leopold Hoesch Museum, Düren
• 1999, "ZERO from Germany", Esslingen , Kiel , Madrid
• 2001, "Darlings - Pictures + Sculptures from private collections", Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen
• 2006 "ZERO - international avant-garde artists of the 50s / 60s, museum kunst palast Düsseldorf

Solo exhibitions (selection)

• 1962, Galerie Schmela, Düsseldorf
• 1967, Art Intermedia, Cologne
• 1969, Tobies & Silex Gallery, Cologne
• 1972, Kunsthalle Nürnberg (with Joachim Bandau)
• 1973, Galerie Onze, Brussels
• 1974, Forum Kunst, Rottweil
• 1975, Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle, Cologne (with Joachim Bandau)
• 1976, Galerie Schmela, Düsseldorf
• 1978, Märkisches Museum, Witten
• 1979, Der Spiegel Gallery, Cologne
• 1989, Beethovenhalle , Bonn
• 1990, Cologne Art Association
• 1990, Galerie Schütte, Essen
• 1992, Galerie Schütte, Essen
• 1995, Leopold Hoesch Museum, Düren
• 1997, Municipal Gallery Remscheid
• 2000, Cologne City Museum and Gallery Skala, Cologne
• 2005, Kunsthalle Villa Kobe , Halle (Saale)
• 2005, Kunstforum St. Clemens, Cologne
• 2005, Burgau Castle , Düren

Artistic achievement - attempt at evaluation

From the beginning, Hans Salentin has been a representative of the artistic avant-garde, has been and is part of recent art history. He always goes his own way, straight, "idiosyncratic" in the best sense of the word. Characteristic for the person and for his message through his work is: Hans Salentin lives his life as an artist through and through, without any social adjustment whatsoever. The man and the artist are shaped by only one expression: to put art into this world for the sake of art - opportunism or ingratiation are alien to him. He lets both people and the art market know that. Salentin lives his life directly! So it is also logical when, after starting out with the Düsseldorf Zero Group from 1962/63, he decided on his own path, which then as now is called "avant-garde" in the true sense of the word, which means nothing else than before things like they are, beyond them, to be had via thoughts of everyday and pleasing visions, to be shaped as utopias.

Of course, the utopia is rooted in today, because here and now he lives this utopia. Exactly this points to the artistic design process of Hans Salentin: by stripping the 'objet trouvé' of its purposeful purpose of an apparatus, a machine, a device of everyday life in modern society, Hans Salentin points out in times of seemingly unlimited technological breakthroughs - we remember e.g. . B. on the conquest of near-earth space - on the principles of the industrial world: on its limitation, on its one-sided functional rationality. And because he transforms the material of this very world into 'objet corrigé', points beyond this modernity to the model of utopia, criticizing the principles of feasibility and explainability and revealing their inherent absurdity. Rather, it shows us the abstraction of concrete life, the spirit of the time, by overcoming the zeitgeist - including that of the art business.

This is so very probably not intended, but, to quote Albert Camus , "Deep feelings - like great works of art - always mean more than they consciously tell." And Salentin is driven by deep feelings, because he and his generation were around Youth betrayed by the war effort and imprisonment in Siberia!

In the much-quoted “Principle of Collage” referring to Hans Salentin, his artistic work path from “objet trouvé” to “objet corrigé”, we recognize on the one hand the person of Hans Salentin, his ability to see, his ingenuity, his outstanding technical ability to draw, his Ability to create a cohesive whole, his weakness for absolute aesthetics, but on the other hand his questions about existence and meaning - and his also absurd answers to the modern world.

literature

• Hans Salentin . The book offering an overview of the work with contributions by Gabriele Lueg and Manfred Schneckenburger to the exhibition at the Kölnischer Kunstverein in spring 1990, published by Pavel Liška , Wienand Verlag Cologne, 1990
• ZERO: Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Günther Uecker , from Heiner Stachelhaus, Düsseldorf, 1993
• The sculptural work of Hans Salentin: work analysis and catalog raisonné, thesis by Thomas Hirsch, PDF document from the Heidelberg University Library, www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/archiv/3347
• Festschrift on the occasion of the exhibition in the Cologne City Museum in honor of the 75th birthday of Hans Salentin in 2000 , published by Michael Euler-Schmidt.
• On the way to the avant-garde - artists of group 53 , edited by Marie-Luise Otten, at the exhibition of the Museum der Stadt Ratingen 2003.
• Hans Salentin for his 80th birthday 2005 - Pictures and Objects , catalog for the exhibition at Burgau / Düren Castle, Ed. Frank Druhm with a contribution by Thomas Hirsch.
• Alfred Schmela - gallery owner pioneer of the avant-garde , publisher Karl Ruhrberg , Wienand Verlag Cologne, 1996
• Hans Salentin on the 80th - An Approach , Frank Druhm, Yearbook 2006, published by the Düren district in 2005
• ZERO is good for you - in: sediment - Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Kunsthandels, Ed .: Zentralarchiv des Internationale Kunsthandels eV-ZADIK, 2006 ISBN 3-938821-25-6

Individual evidence

1. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Full members of the German Association of Artists since it was founded in 1903 / Salentin, Hans ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 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. (accessed on December 31, 2015)  

Web links

• Literature by and about Hans Salentin in the catalog of the German National Library
• Materials by and about Hans Salentin in the documenta archive