Klaus Peter Dencker

Klaus Peter Dencker (born March 22, 1941 in Lübeck-Travemünde ) is a television producer , author of visual poetry and former professor for "Media Theory and Media Practice" at Trier University .

Life and accomplishments

Klaus Peter Dencker studied German literature , Japanese studies and philosophy at the University of Hamburg until 1965. He then worked at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg until 1974 as an assistant and lecturer for German literature (at Ulrich Fülleborn's chair ) and for film and television studies. until 1975, freelance writer and filmmaker. He then worked as the first editor and filmmaker at Saarland radio / television in the field of culture until 1985, and from 1982 to 1985 chairman of the program staff committee of Saarland radio.

During his work as a television producer, he made around 100 documentary and experimental films for ARD and ZDF . The most important experimental films are starfighter , rausch and Austronaut , which were made under the title TV-Poesie-Visuelle Poesie 1970/71 at SWF / Baden-Baden. In 1978 he produced the first EB production (in the Museums der Welt series, the documentary The Vatican Museums ) for ARD / SR as a writer and director. Important documentaries are "Maulkonzert" (about acoustic poetry) and "Visual poetry", which were produced in 1977 and 1985 on behalf of the SR / Saarbrücken.

From 1981 he was a lecturer at the Universities of Saarbrücken and Trier , and from 1985 to 2000 professor for the subject “Media Theory and Media Practice” at the University of Trier. 1985 to 2002 he was also the chief government director of the Hamburg cultural authority. During his work in the Hamburg cultural authority, he was in charge of the areas of literature, film, photography, new media / media art, visual arts, international cultural exchange, town twinning, and cultural programs.

He worked (as deputy chairman) from 1986 to 1992 together with Eberhard Fechner (chairman) in the commission for the establishment of a German media library. From 1991 to 1993 he was a member of the film / media structure commission at the Brandenburg State Minister of Culture, in 1992 and 1993 a member of the university commission for the film and television college "Konrad Wolf" in Potsdam-Babelsberg, and from 1992 to 1995 a member of the jury for the German Media Art Prize of the Center for Art and Medientechnologie (ZKM) / Karlsruhe, initiator and 1990 to 2000 supervisor of the series Interface , International Symposium of Media Innovation and 1996 to 2001 initiator and coordinator of the electronic communication network in the Baltic Sea region Baltic Interface Net (BIN).

Dencker has been awarded several prizes and grants, including the city of Erlangen's youngest culture award winner in 1972 and the 1982 Berlin Art Award, Academy of the Arts. The city of Lübeck in conjunction with the Overbeck Society honored him in 2011 with a reception on his 70th birthday. In 2012 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Federal President Joachim Gauck.

Exhibitions / works included in collections

As an author, Dencker works in the area between literature and the fine arts: "As a continuation of visual concrete poetry, Dencker was one of the few in Germany to develop theories and practices that have attracted international attention" (from the jury's reasoning for the award of the sponsorship award for the Berlin Art Prize, Academy of the Arts 1982). Since 1970 he has been involved in over 200 international solo and collective exhibitions of visual poetry. The most important solo exhibition took place on the occasion of the 60th birthday in 2001 in the Hamburger Bahnhof / Berlin with over 200 sheets from the holdings of the art library of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin , the most extensive in all exhibition rooms of the Museum Schloss Burgk / Saale on the 75th birthday.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

• Dencker's poster poems. Mobilia, Erlangen December 11, 1969–31. January 1970
• Dencker, text images. Goethe-Institut Lille, May 4, 1972 (opening)
• Dencker's visual poetry. Galerie Kröger, Kirchheim-Teck March 31–3. May 1985
• Klaus Peter Dencker (1967–1997). University Library, Trier October 27–8. November 1997
• Klaus Peter Dencker: Sequences. Hamburger Bahnhof / Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin April 2–29. August 2001
• Klaus Peter Dencker, visual poetry. State and University Library Hamburg March 30–13. May 2006
• Klaus Peter Dencker, Between Text and Image. City Gallery Erlangen August 26th – 24th September 2006
• Klaus Peter Dencker, Between Text and Image. Kulturforum Burgkloster, Lübeck April 15–27. May 2007
• In honor of Klaus Peter Dencker. Overbeck Society, Lübeck April 17, 2011
• Klaus Peter Dencker, Visual Poetry 1969–2012. NDR, Hamburg January 30–2. May 2013
• Klaus Peter Dencker, TextSpielArt. Galerie Allee, Hamburg 4.-28. February 2014
• Klaus Peter Dencker, visual sequences. Günter-Grass-Haus, Lübeck January 15 - March 22, 2016
• Klaus Peter Dencker, visual lessons. State and University Library Hamburg March 19 - May 1, 2016
• Klaus Peter Dencker, Sehmantic. Museum Castle Burgk / Saale May 29th - August 14th 2016

Mural “Understanding” on a building of the Kiel University of Applied Sciences

Dencker's work can be found in archives, libraries and museums, including Archivio Francesco Conz / Verona, Archivio Carlo Palli / Prato, Archive Ruth and Marvin Sackner / Miami Beach, Hokkaido Museum of Literature / Sapporo, Museum of Contemporary Japanese Poetry / Kitakami, Neues Museum / Nuremberg, Neues Museum / Weserburg (study center) / Bremen, Ohio State University Libraries, Stanford University Libraries, The Getty Research Institute / Los Angeles. There is an extensive collection of Dencker's works of visual poetry (from 1970 to 2000) in the Art Library / Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Prussian Cultural Heritage and another (with works since 2000, which is continuously being expanded) in the Hamburg State and University Library. The ZKM (Center for Art and Media Technology) also houses all of the filmmaker's works (scripts, treatments, scripts), as well as lecture, seminar documents and publications by media scientist Dencker and extensive groups of works on large framework works and text objects are in the CampusKunst-D collection of the Kiel University of Applied Sciences, which is also continuously updated.

Publications

• TEXT IMAGES - VISUAL POETRY INTER-NATIONAL. DuMont Verlag, Cologne 1972
• THE YOUNG FRIEDEL. Beck Verlag, Munich 1977
• GERMAN NONSENSE. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1978
• VISUAL POETRY. Saarländischer Rundfunk, Saarbrücken 1984
• OH BIG WORLD, YOU LUNAPARK. GEORGE GROSZ-COLLECTED POEMS. Hanser Verlag, Munich 1986
• THE JOURNEY TO ROME. Visual poetry. Siegen 1987 (= experimental texts no. 14/15)
• WORD HEADS. Visual poetry 1969–1991 (preface: Christina Weiss , with complete bibliography up to 1990). Siegen 1991 (= experimental texts no. 27-28)
• VISUAL POETRY FROM JAPAN. Culture Authority Hamburg, Hamburg 1997
• SEQUENCES. Visual poetry (preface: Hans Peter Althaus , with complete bibliography until 1998). Siegen 1998 (= experimental texts no. 51–53)
• K (L) A POETIC. Works from 1967 to 2000. edition fundamental, Cologne 2001
• POETIC LANGUAGE GAMES. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 2003 (Award: Poetry Book of the Year 2003)
• RENSHI. Visual chain poem (together with Yasuo Fujitomi, Hiroo Kamimura, Motoyuki Ito, Shutaro Mukai, Shohachiro Takahashi), Berlin 2003
• LW SEQUENCE. Visual poetry. St. Petersburg 2003 (= Visual World Poetry)
• PEACE / WAR. Visual communal poem with Hiroshi Tanabu. Tanabu Edition No. 27 / Saitama 2003
• VISUAL POETRY I, 1965-2005. Monograph. Edited by the Berlin Art Library. Publishing house "Library of the Province", Weitra / A 2006
• UNDERSTAND. Squares & Sequences. Redfoxpress, Dugort / Achill Island, County Mayo / Ireland 2007.
• AMBIGUITY & MORE. Sequences. Redfoxpress, Dugort / Achill Island, County Mayo / Ireland 2009.
• EPITAPH TO .... Redfoxpress, Dugort / Achill Island, County Mayo / Ireland 2010.
• THIS IS VISUAL POETRY. single pages from 1971 till 2010. chapbook. Kingston / PA / USA; chapbookpublisher: http://www.thisisvisualpoetry.com/
• OPTICAL POETRY. From the prehistoric characters to the digital experiments of the present. Walter de Gruyter / Berlin-New York 2011.
• MORNING HAS SHORT LEGS. Nonsense poetry. Edited by Klaus Peter Dencker. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2011. (= Reclam Taschenbuch 20224)
• Word exchange. Poetic language games. Edited by Klaus Peter Dencker. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2012. (= Reclam Taschenbuch 20261)
• ABCDARUM (together with JM Calleja). Redfoxpress, Dugort / Achill Island, County Mayo / Ireland 2013
• SIDE WORK. Sequence. Redfoxpress, Dugort / Achill Island, County Mayo / Ireland 2015
• VISUAL POETRY II, works until 2015. Verlag "Bibliothek der Provinz", Weitra / A 2015
• FROM A TO Z (together with József Bíró). Redfoxpress, Dugort / Achill Island, County Mayo / Ireland 2018
• NO A - NO Z (together with Giovanni Fontana). Redfoxpress, Dugort / Achill Island, County Mayo / Ireland 2019

bibliography

A bibliography of all publications (print, television, radio, video, CD), exhibitions, readings, events and secondary literature about Dencker is published in the 2nd volume of the work edition: Klaus Peter Dencker, Visuelle Poesie II. Weitra 2016, p. 257 ff.

Web links

• Literature by and about Klaus Peter Dencker in the catalog of the German National Library
• Dencker on lyrikline.org