Jürgen Kramer

Jürgen Kramer (born October 26, 1948 in Gelsenkirchen-Schalke ; † November 22, 2011 in Gelsenkirchen ) was a German artist and philosopher . He lived and worked in Gelsenkirchen, where he worked as a curator of the Bergmannsglück Forum for about ten years .

Life

Jürgen Kramer studied from 1969 to 1974 at the Düsseldorf Art Academy with Joseph Beuys and was one of his master students . From 1974 he traveled a. a. in Provence to the Montagne Sainte-Victoire . From 1985 to 1989 Kramer had a studio in Essen . Kramer has designed numerous exhibitions, including in the Siegfried Sander Galleries, Producer Gallery Hamburg, Galerie 20.21, Wolfgang Schoppmann and Galerie Klaus Kiefer.

From 2003 Jürgen Kramer took over curatorial tasks in the private gallery "Forum Bergmannsglück" in the gate house of the colliery of the same name in Gelsenkirchen-Buer from Else and Werner Thiel (* 1927 in Breslau; † April 28, 2003) after the miner and artist Werner Thiel in 2003 had passed away. He provided this activity with exhibitions from the artistic environment of the Beuys class (Irmela and Felix Droese, Walter Dahn , Erinna König, Stefan and Johannes Stüttgen , Klaus Tesching, Thomas Groetz, Felix Zdziuch and others) until shortly after Else Thiel's death, as the gallery had to be closed because the rental contracts could not be taken over and the gallery gate house of the Bergmannsglück colliery was put up for sale.

In 2010 Jürgen Kramer curated the exhibition “In the field of tension between the extended concept of art - Gelsenkirchen around Beuys”, which opened on September 8, 2010 in Gelsenkirchen.

A retrospective on the painterly work of Jürgen Kramer under the title “Vom Jasagen - In memoriam Jürgen Kramer” ran from March 2 to April 22, 2012 in the Klaus Kiefer Gallery, Essen. From April 24 to June 24, 2012, works by Jürgen Kramer were exhibited in the exhibition “Beuys and Students” in the Borken City Museum, Westphalia.

plant

painting

The first half of Kramer's painterly work is characterized by dark themes such as death, dying and existentialism. In his painting he wanted to symbolically represent the “living dead walking around in their own corpse” (based on a quote from Peter Sloterdijk ).

From 1998 to 2002 he was internally emigrated . In contrast to earlier works, Kramer's more recent work is characterized by a bright, colorful palette and sometimes humorous motifs. Topics are e.g. B. Melancholy and comfort.

The "1980s"

In the 1980s Kramer dealt intensively with punk and new wave and published the magazine "The 80s" and yearbooks under the title "Der Rabe", which attracted international interest. On a poster he designed in 1979 for a concert in Gelsenkirchen, he already used the term “New Wave”, which later became the general term for German music of the 80s . Also in the early 1980s, Kramer was a co-initiator of the Gelsenkirchen branch of Joseph Beuys Free International University (FIU).

Jürgen Kramer's fellow student Johannes Stüttgen, a master student of Joseph Beuys, had taken over the vacancy from Franz-Joseph van der Grinten in 1971 at the Grillo Gymnasium, Gelsenkirchen, following a tip from Joseph Beuys. From his teaching activities as an art teacher at the Grillo-Gymnasium in Gelsenkirchen (1971–1980), Johannes Stüttgen set up the school working group "Art AG" / Free International University (FIU) / Fluxus Zone West ". Kunst AG ”found his students Siegfried“ Siggi ”Sander (Multiple Box Gallery, Hamburg), Achim Weber and others accepted into the Beuys class at the State Art Academy in Düsseldorf and founded the“ Salinos ”(punk choir) in Gelsenkirchen as part of the“ Kunst AG ”activities. , the “Kitchen Theater” and “Die Grünen” (local group) These activities were also accompanied by Jürgen Kramer.

philosophy

Kramer made intensive use of the new media and published and wrote on the Internet (rabe 489, zweiseele). His theme in words and pictures was nihilism , which he saw spreading in all areas of life since the beginning of modernity, and which he opposed, drawing on the ideals of German romanticism, with art as an element of the human and creative.

Web links

• www.zweitseele.de - Website about the work of Jürgen Kramer
• Jürgen Kramer as person responsible for press law and author of the magazine "Ruhrkampf" (with Jörg Immendorff, among others)
• Last blog of the artist
• Action project to preserve the artist's internet activities
• Article about Jürgen Kramer in the Gelsenkirchen HerrKules magazine

Individual evidence

1. ↑ derwesten.de , accessed on November 24, 2011
2. ↑ "In the field of tension of the expanded concept of art - Gelsenkirchen around Beuys"
3. ↑ Excerpts from the magazine "The 80s"