Johannes Cladders

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Johannes Cladders (born September 14, 1924 in Krefeld ; † February 6, 2009 there ) was a curator , art journalist, visual artist and museum director in Mönchengladbach.

Live and act

Cladders had to do military service in the Wehrmacht . After the Second World War he studied German, English, philosophy and art history at the universities of Cologne and Bonn . After receiving his doctorate in 1955, he first worked as an editor for the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger . In 1957, Cladders accepted a position as a research assistant at the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld.

From 1967 Cladders took over the management of the municipal art museums in Mönchengladbach for eighteen years, initially the old museum on Bismarckstraße and from 1982 to 1985 the newly built Abteiberg Museum . Under his leadership, the museum gained national renown as the center of 20th century art.

Cladders is considered a trailblazer for Joseph Beuys , George Brecht , Robert Filliou and Jannis Kounellis in the German art scene. For Documenta 5 1972 under Harald Szeemann , he took over the design of the Individual Mythology Department . As a guiding principle, he admitted to “deepen and not expand” and limited himself to a few individual positions, namely Broodthaers , Beuys, Filliou.

Cladders was appointed official representative for the German pavilion at the Venice Biennale twice : in 1982 with the trio Gotthard Graubner , Hanne Darboven and Wolfgang Laib and in 1984 with AR Penck and Lothar Baumgarten .

In March 1985, Cladders retired. A documentation of his years in Mönchengladbach was the exhibition A partir de là / From then on for his 75th birthday in the BIS center at the end of 1999 . In 2000 he received the Art Cologne Prize , endowed with 20,000 DM, for his life's work. In 1985 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class.

At the end of 1984, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia awarded him an honorary professorship for his special services to science and art . He received the highest honor in the city of Mönchengladbach, the Ring of Honor, on April 26, 1985.

Cladders also emerged as an art print graphic artist under the artist name "C for Caesar". An inventory of his work was created by the Konrad Kohlhammer Foundation in the graphic collection of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart .

At the 25th anniversary of the Abteiberg Museum in June 2007, Cladders made his last public appearance in Gladbach - even then marked by cancer. He died at the age of 84 on February 6, 2009 in his home in Krefeld.
Since 2019 the square in front of the main entrance of the museum has been called 'Johannes-Cladders-Platz'.

Works (selection)

  • C for Caesar: 142 works from the years 1958–1991 Inventory book of the Konrad Kohlhammer Foundation in the graphic collection of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, inv. No. GVL 379, 1 - 142 in chronological order. - Stuttgart: Konrad Kohlhammer Foundation, 1994. - 111 pp.
  • Walter Grasskamp - Johannes Cladders (edited by the Kunststiftung NRW). - Cologne: DuMont-Literatur-und-Kunst-Verl., 2004. 101 pp. ISBN 3-8321-7313-7
  • Otto Brues . An investigation into the poetry and intellectual history of the Rhineland. Univ. Dissertation Bonn 1955

literature

  • Thomas W. Kuhn: Johannes Cladders , Mönchengladbach 2011. 100 pages ISBN 3-936824-33-9 .
  • Susanne Wischermann: Johannes Cladders: Museum man and artist . Lang, Frankfurt am Main; Berlin ; Bern; New York ; Paris; Vienna 1997. 451 pp. (Additional dissertation Univ. Cologne 1996) ISBN 3-631-31269-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c johannes cladders (caesar). Museum Platform NRW, accessed on July 5, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Can you play ping-pong here? ( Memento of November 19, 2000 in the Internet Archive ).
  3. ^ A b Death of Prof. Johannes Cladders. Museum director died in Mönchengladbach. Flensburg online, February 11, 2009, accessed on July 5, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Commerce is a pioneer, the museum honors. Die Welt, October 31, 2000, accessed July 5, 2017 .
  5. ↑ The museum's father is dead. RP online, February 10, 2009, accessed July 5, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Rheinische Post (local section Mönchengladbach) May 20, 2019 p. D1: "Homage to a great one"
personal data
SURNAME Cladders, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES C for Caesar (artist pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian, artist and museum director
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Krefeld
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 2009
Place of death Krefeld