Heiner Bastian

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Heiner Bastian (born June 8, 1942 in Rantau , East Prussia ) is a German poet and translator , art dealer , curator and art collector , art advisor and art critic as well as publicist and author of non-fiction books on art and artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Life

Bastian was born the son of the engineer Hugo Bastian and his wife Ilse, née Trautsch. His father was an engineer for aircraft engine construction and was stationed in Neukuhren during the Second World War . On one of the last trains before the Russian army marched into East Prussia, the family was able to flee to Luckenwalde and in 1946 moved to Wilhelmshorst , where Bastian grew up. His father worked in the German Administration of the Interior in Potsdam, but was arrested by the Soviet headquarters in 1947 and sentenced after a trial for unexplained reasons and imprisoned as a political prisoner in a labor camp in Vorkuta until 1956. Thanks to Adenauer's intervention, who campaigned for the release of all German political prisoners, he too was able to return to West Germany in 1956. He brought the family who had to secretly leave the GDR to live in Karlsruhe . At the insistence of his father, Bastian completed a precision mechanic and electronics apprenticeship. He then enrolled at the Technical University of Karlsruhe , albeit without studying there, but wrote articles for the student newspaper Ventil .

At the beginning of the 1960s, Bastian broke out of the narrowness of the Baden city and toured the south, east and north of Africa in 1964 and 1965. In 1966 he settled in San Francisco and studied linguistics and comparative literature there . From 1967 Bastian worked as a volunteer and lecturer for City Lights, the publishing house and bookstore of the legendary author and publisher of the Beat Generation, Lawrence Ferlinghetti . In his publishing house, he met underground writers and began translating their books. In 1966, Bastian traveled to West Berlin with Ferlinghetti at Walter Höllerer's invitation , and took part in his symposium “A poem and its author”. From Berlin he traveled with Ferlinghetti via Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Railway to Nachodka and Japan. Since Ferlinghetti did not have a visa for Japan, Bastian was forced in Nachodka to take the ship to Japan alone. Back in San Francisco he met his future wife Celine. In the fall of 1967, at the invitation of Hans Werner Richter, Bastian took part in the last meeting of Gruppe 47 in Pottenstein, Franconia , where he read poems that he published in the Hanser Verlag. Back in San Francisco, he befriended the writer Anaïs Nin and the poet Allen Ginsberg . These encounters were to shape his further life as an author, editor and gallery owner. After a public protest against the Vietnam War , the Federal Bureau of Investigation revoked his residence permit and he was expelled from the United States.

Bastian and his wife decided to live in West Berlin . Through his long-standing friendship with Reinhard Lettau and Magnus Enzensberger, who became their best man, he quickly found a literary circle of friends. During this time he also met the painter David Hockney , with whom he was working on a portfolio of Grimm's fairy tales, which he translated into English. By publishing volumes of poetry, he made a name for himself as a poet from 1968. A first contribution appeared in 1968 in the literary magazine Akzente and in Kursbuch 15 . In 1969 he translated with his wife Celine Eldridge Cleaver's Seele auf Eis for Carl Hanser Verlag as well as Allen Ginsberg's collection of poems Planet News , the internationally acclaimed publication The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda and the books by Richard Brautigan .

In 1968 he met the Düsseldorf artist Joseph Beuys at an event at the West Berlin Academy of the Arts . For many years he then worked as an agent and private secretary for Beuys, whose thinking had a lasting influence on him. Between the two of them and with Beuys 'family, a steady working and trusting relationship gradually developed by 1975, which lasted until Beuys' death in 1986. Bastian's work, which also consisted of shielding Beuys from improper suggestions, was rewarded “very generously” by donating Beuys works. In 1976, for example, Beuys dedicated and presented his “Secretary” with the work Secretary Bag , which is now in the Scottish National Gallery , which consists of a brown mailing envelope with a manuscript of several pages that is entitled “The Energy Plan for the Western Man”. In 1988 he set up the first comprehensive retrospective of the work of Joseph Beuys in the Martin Gropius-Bau for the city of Berlin, Europe's cultural city , which made a lasting impression on many young artists, including in the GDR, even before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

From 1979 Bastian appeared as editor and author of numerous publications, in particular on the work of Joseph Beuys, Robert Rauschenberg , Andy Warhol , Cy Twombly , whose catalog raisonné of images, and Anselm Kiefer appeared and curated exhibitions of these artists in Berlin, London, Madrid, New York and Los Angeles.

Bastian House , Am Kupfergraben 10 in Berlin-Mitte

Since 1975 the Berlin building contractor and art collector Erich Marx hired him as an art advisor and curator for the collection in the Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart , in the establishment of which he played a key role until the opening in 1996. In 2007 Bastian ended his curatorial work for Marx and opened in Berlin-Mitte ,

At Kupfergraben 10, a gallery .

The gallery building, later known as Haus Bastian , was designed by the architect David Chipperfield , whose minimalist , contextual design emerged victorious in an architectural competition held in 2003. After more than 10 years of highly regarded exhibitions on Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Cy Twombly, Picasso, Damien Hirst, Eberhard Havekost, Thomas Zipp and other artists, the building was opened by the Bastian family in 2017

the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation gift, which took it as donation contract in March 2019 for the purposes of cultural education. With the involvement of the Humboldt Forum , topics are to be brought into focus and conveyed that enable a bridge between the collections and houses on Berlin's Museum Island .

With another donation, the Bastian family supported the Chemnitz art collections , headed by Ingrid Mössinger , which received 200 works from all genres, from paintings and works on paper to installations and photographs, including works by Picasso , Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter and Luc Tuymans , but also by representatives of a younger generation such as Eberhard Havekost and Olaf Holzapfel .

In 2009 and 2010, Bastian switched himself through a petition signed by many important artists, curators and collectors, through the publication of a pamphlet and through newspaper articles in which he denounced the neglect of Beuys' works at Moyland Castle and the immediate Closure of the museum called for a public debate about the “sheer undignifiedness” of the presentation there. This meant that the museum management, who was already working on a new museum concept in the spirit of a “new beginning”, came under considerable pressure.

Bastian is married to the translator and editor Celine Bastian, née Harbeck, with whom he founded his gallery and exhibited art for many years. The couple occasionally translates and publishes together. You live in a house in Berlin-Dahlem . Her son Aeneas, who received his doctorate on the myth of Sisyphus after studying comparative literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne, ran a business in Berlin in the 2000s together with his wife Dr. Harriet Häußler-Bastian the Upstairs Gallery . In 2016 he took over the Bastian Gallery from his parents. In February 2019, Aeneas Bastian opened a gallery in Mayfair furnished by David Chipperfield in London with exhibitions of Andy Warhol's Polaroids and Cy Twombly's graphic cycles. An exhibition of important early sculptures by Joseph Beuys was shown in the fall, followed by light sculptures by Dan Flavin . Heiner Bastian published a new volume of Poems in December 2019. In Berlin, the planning for a new gallery and culture house in Dahlem is well advanced. The opening is planned for autumn 2021.

Publications (selection)

  • 1968: observations in the sea of ​​air, poems, Hanser
  • 1970: the pictures are mainly just how you feel the red, poems, Hanser
  • 1972: death in life: poem for joseph beuys, Hanser
  • 1973: Joseph Beuys. Pencil drawings from the years 1946–1964, Propylaen-Verlag, Berlin, Frankfurt / Main, Vienna
  • 1973: Cy Twombly: Drawings 1953–1973 , Propylaea
  • 1975: Joseph Beuys: Wasserfarben 1936–1963, Propylaen
  • 1978: Cy Twombly: Bilder / Paintings 1952–1976 , Propylaea
  • 1979: Joseph Beuys: Drawings - Tekeningen - Drawings (with Jeannot Simmen ), exhibition cat. New National Gallery, Berlin
  • 1981: Joseph Beuys: Oil colors 1936–1965, Propylaea
  • 1982: Beuys - Rauschenberg - Twombly - Warhol, Marx Collection , Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin
  • 1985: Cy Twombly: Das graphische Werk, 1953–1984: a Catalog Raisonné of the Printed Graphic Work, 2nd revised and expanded edition 2017
  • 1985: Joseph Beuys - 7000 oaks, exhibition cat. Kunsthalle Tübingen and Bielefeld, Kassel Art Collection
  • 1986: Farewell to Joseph Beuys: nothing has been written yet, Verlag Walther König, Cologne
  • 1988: Joseph Beuys. Sculptures and Objects / The secret block for a secret person in Ireland, exhibition cat. Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin
  • 1996: Marx Collection in Hamburger Bahnhof, 3 vols.
  • 1999: Joseph Beuys: Editions
  • 2009: Dream and Nightmare: A fruitless attempt to find the magic of Joseph Beuys' works in Moyland
  • 2009 to 2014: Anselm Books . 8 artist books (grass will grow over your cities / I hold all India in my hand / the secret life of plants / Das Balder-Lied / aperiatur terra / The Shape of Ancient Thought / Kühlstaub / Morgenthau)
  • 2010: Anselm Kiefer: Heroic Symbols / Heroic Symbols , exhibition cat. Bastian Gallery, Berlin
  • 2012: The Argonauts reach the open sea and discuss the progress of their story: essays on Beuys, Hirst, Kiefer, Picasso, Twombly, Warhol
  • 2013: Joseph Beuys: Skulpturen / Sculptures , National Gallery of Ottawa, Schirmer / Mosel
  • 2014: Anselm Kiefer: Posters Exhibitions 1970–2014 (with Lisa Sandner), Schirmer / Mosel
  • 1992 to 2018: Cy Twombly: Catalog Raisonné of the Paintings, 7 vols.
  • 2018: Anselm Kiefer: Bilder / Paintings. Monograph , Schirmer / Mosel
  • 2019: And tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow , poems, Ulrich Keicher Verlag

literature

  • Five German Poets: Notes on the Poets . In: James Laughlin, Peter Glassgold, Griselda Ohannessian (Eds.): New Directions: An International Anthology of Prose & Poetry . Volume 53 (1989), p. 47 ( Google Books ).
  • Hans Peter Riegel : Beuys. The biography . Volume 2: 1964–1986 (expanded new edition), Riverside, 2018, ISBN 978-3-9524-8245-2 , p. 253.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georg Diez : Everyone builds their own museum . Article from April 3, 2008 in the zeit.de portal , accessed on August 12, 2018
  2. ↑ observations in the sea of ​​air (1968) and the pictures are mainly just how you feel the red (1970), both published by Hanser Verlag
  3. ^ Gregory Divers: The Image and the Influence of America in German Poetry since 1945 . Camden House, Rochester / New York 2002, ISBN 1-57113-242-2 , p. 249
  4. ↑ Martina Kaden (note): How Joseph Beuys changed my life . Article from January 24, 2011 in the portal bz-berlin.de , accessed on August 11, 2018
  5. ^ Beuys between all fat stools . In: Der Spiegel , No. 6/1988, p. 202 ( PDF )
  6. ↑ Joseph Beuys: Secretary's pocket , 1976 , website in the tate.org.uk portal , accessed on August 12, 2018
  7. ↑ MuseumsJournal , Volume 10, Berlin 1996, p. 24
  8. ↑ Erich Marx explains his collector's soul . Article from April 20, 2011 in the berliner-zeitung.de portal , accessed on August 11, 2018
  9. ^ Ingeborg Ruthe: Chipperfield House goes to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation . Article from September 29, 2017 in the berliner-zeitung.de portal , accessed on August 11, 2018
  10. ^ Haus Bastian becomes a center for cultural education . Article from September 28, 2017 in the portal bundesregierung.de , accessed on August 12, 2018
  11. ^ Nicola Kuhn: 200 Farewell Works . Article from November 20, 2018 in the portal tagesspiegel.de , accessed on August 16, 2018
  12. ↑ Heiner Bastian: The Prisoner of Moyland . Article from September 16, 2009 in the welt.de portal , accessed on August 12, 2018
  13. ^ Christiane Meixner: Dispute about Beuys inheritance . Article from August 22, 2010 in the portal tagesspiegel.de , accessed on August 12, 2018
  14. ↑ CF Schröer: Palazzo Randale ( Memento of the original dated August 12, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Article from June 20, 2011 in the eiskellerberg.tv portal , accessed on August 12, 2018 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eiskellerberg.tv
  15. ↑ Hesitant new beginning . Article from January 20, 2010 in the monopol-magazin.de portal , accessed on August 12, 2018
  16. ↑ Matthias Grass: Heiner Bastian maps . Article from August 20, 2009 in the rp-online.de portal , accessed on August 12, 2018
  17. ↑ Christiane Fricke: Attacks aim at the withdrawal of the works from Moyland . Article dated November 7, 2009 in the handelsblatt.com portal , accessed on August 12, 2018
  18. ↑ Florentine Anders: Renaissance of the middle class . Article from May 22, 2005 in the welt.de portal , accessed on August 13, 2018
  19. ↑ Donna Schons: Aeneas Bastian takes over Galerie Bastian . Article from July 19, 2016 in the monopol-magazin.de portal , accessed on August 12, 2018
  20. ↑ Gabriela Walde: The dream of the Museum Island . Article from October 21, 2016 in the morgenpost.de portal , accessed on August 12, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Bastian, Heiner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet, translator, art dealer, curator and art collector, art critic as well as publicist and author
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Rantau , East Prussia