Klaus Staeck

Klaus Staeck 2018

Klaus Staeck (born February 28, 1938 in Pulsnitz ) is a German graphic designer , caricaturist and lawyer . From April 2006 to May 2015 he was President of the Academy of the Arts in Berlin .

Life

Youth and education

Like his brother Rolf , who was born in 1943, Klaus Staeck grew up in the industrial city of Bitterfeld , where he also experienced the popular uprising of June 17, 1953 . At school he suffered greatly from injustice and manipulation from communist ideology. Immediately after graduating from high school in 1956, he moved to Heidelberg and in 1957 repeated the Abitur at the Bunsen Gymnasium , since the GDR secondary school leaving certificates were not recognized in the Federal Republic of Germany. Then he worked as a construction worker. From 1957 to 1962 Staeck studied law in Heidelberg, Hamburg and Berlin, where he passed his first state examination. He completed the subsequent legal preparatory service (traineeship training) with the second state examination.

Full-time and part-time work

As early as 1962, Staeck organized his first political demonstration in Heidelberg, the subject of which was the Spiegel affair . In 1965 Staeck founded the producer publisher "Edition Tangente" (today: "Edition Staeck"), which has also been issuing editions ( multiples ) by internationally recognized artists since the late 1960s . For example Joseph Beuys , with whom he has worked since 1968, Panamarenko , Dieter Roth , Nam June Paik , Wolf Vostell , Daniel Spoerri , and many others. In 1968 Staeck was admitted to the bar in Heidelberg and Mannheim .

In 1969 Klaus Staeck organized an art campaign by the then largely unknown artist Christo , who completely covered the Heidelberger Amerikahaus with white sheets . It was Christo's first artistic wrapping campaign in Germany. For Staeck, this art campaign turned into a financial disaster.

Since the early 1970s, Klaus Staeck has been working as a graphic artist in the field of political satire in the tradition of John Heartfield . During this time, a close collaboration with the Göttingen publisher Gerhard Steidl began . His main work has so far comprised around 300 posters, most of which consist of photomontages, to which he adds his own ironic sayings. His satirical posters and the postcard editions he sold commercially were often directed against the content of CDU / CSU politics . His satire repeatedly provoked politicians in conservative circles. This often led to scandal and legal disputes, which, however, suited him well, as it did not insignificantly increase his awareness.

For the 1972 federal election, his ironic political poster German workers! The SPD wants to take away your villas in Ticino published. The poster achieved a print run of 75,000 copies and is the best known of his motifs. In the 1970s and 1980s in particular, his graphics were popular, so he was able to live on the proceeds from postcard sales. Despite his membership in the SPD , he attaches great importance to never having been a party graphic artist and not having done any commissioned work for the SPD.

Signature Klaus Staeck

In 1971 he and Beuys and Erwin Heerich wrote an appeal against the exclusivity of the Cologne art market. In the same year he carried out his first poster campaign for the Dürer year in Nuremberg with his social case poster . For the poster he used Albrecht Dürer's charcoal drawing Portrait of the Mother from 1514 and combined it with the question: Would you rent this woman a room?

Klaus Staeck was a participant in Documenta 5 in Kassel in 1972 in the Department of Parallel Imagery: Political Propaganda . (He was also represented as an artist at Documenta 6 (1977), Documenta 7 (1982) and Documenta 8 in 1987.) By 2012 Staeck was able to present around 3,000 solo exhibitions at home and abroad.

On March 30, 1976, the CDU politician Philipp Jenninger tore up a poster by Staeck that was hanging in an exhibition in the Parliamentary Society in Bonn and that read Since Chile we know more precisely what the CDU thinks of democracy . With the poster, Staeck alluded to a statement by Bruno Heck : After the coup in Chile by the general and later dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1973, Heck saw the situation in a sports stadium in Santiago de Chile , which served as a concentration camp and torture site, with the sentence described: Life in the stadium is quite comfortable in sunny weather. The action by Jenninger's MPs, which Staeck brought close to the burned poet, was referred to in the media as a Bonn iconoclasm . The exhibition was closed on the same evening after a decision by the Board of Directors of the Parliamentary Society, Jenninger, however, was sentenced in June 1976 to a compensation payment of 10 D-Marks to Staeck plus 35 Marks fees for Staeck's lawyer and 18 Marks court costs. A CDU politician who compared Staeck's works with the Nazi caricatures in 1976 was also defeated by the graphic artist in court. At the beginning of the 1980s, Staeck received more threatening letters with full names and addresses and the number of exhibitions in Germany fell drastically.

Klaus Staeck giving a speech in the plenary hall of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin 1989

In 1971 Staeck received a visiting professorship at the University of Kassel and in 1986 at the Düsseldorf Art Academy .

After the reunification in the GDR, Staeck joined the Akademie der Künste zu Berlin in 1990 , the renamed Academy of the Arts of the GDR under the new, democratic leadership of Heiner Müller . By merging the two Berlin academies, Staeck became a member of the joint academy of the arts in 1993 .

On April 29, 2006, Staeck was unexpectedly elected President of the Berlin Academy of the Arts at the general meeting. He was the successor to the resigned Swiss writer Adolf Muschg . In the same year he got involved as a critic of an Arno Breker exhibition in Schwerin in order to organize an exhibition for Johannes Heesters in Berlin, who had donated his estate to the academy.

On May 9, 2009, Staeck was re-elected at the academy's spring members' meeting. As part of the candidacy, he had announced that the artists would “actively intervene” “also in the coming socio-political disputes”. In this context, Staeck also emphasized that he was now accepted in the ranks of the Union, especially by the Minister of State for Culture Bernd Neumann (CDU).

Re-elected in 2012, he took up his third and (in accordance with the statutes) final term of office until May 2015 as the Academy President. Since 2015 he has been Honorary President of the Academy of the Arts, Berlin.

In March 2015 the Berlin Academy of Arts opened a Staeck- work exhibition entitled Art for All . The poster art of the graphic artist as well as art objects from Edition Staeck are shown. There is also a cartoon of Mohammed. In the framework of the exhibition there will be a discussion on the subject of Charlie Hebdo under the title Don't Buckle! .

Staeck has been writing a fortnightly column in the Berliner Zeitung and Frankfurter Rundschau for many years .

He is a member of the PEN Center Germany . In 1997 he was one of the founding members of the Willy Brandt Circle .

On April 16, 2020, SWR television broadcast the documentary film Die Kunst nicht im Saale, produced by Andreas Ammer - poster artist Klaus Staeck on the artist, in which publisher Gerhard Steidl , SPD politician Martin Schulz , former employees of Akademie der Künste Berlin and his brother Rolf Staeck talk about Staeck.

Political offices and functions

Klaus Staeck at the Federal Party Conference of the SPD 2015 in Berlin

Staeck has been a member of the SPD since April 1, 1960 . In 1969 Staeck ran unsuccessfully for the Heidelberg city council and became a member of the district executive committee of the SPD and the Young Socialists .

He is a member of the board of the Darmstädter Signal sponsorship group .

In 1973 he was chairman of the Free International University (FIU) association and founded the Action for more democracy initiative .

In 1983 he became a member of the Advisory Board of the Humanist Union .

In 2004 Staeck became a member of the cultural senate of Saxony-Anhalt .

“I keep trying to be a disruptor of the comfortable circumstances. Nothing is done , is my credo. Defending the through no fault of the weak against the arrogance of the strong is still my concern. If I sense injustice anywhere, I want to do something about it. "

- Klaus Staeck : Interview with Die Tageszeitung on February 28, 2018

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions (selection)

• 1960: Heidelberg, Buhl house
• 1965: Prague, Viola Gallery
• 1967: Ithaca, NY, Museum of Art
• 1970: Frankfurt am Main, Galerie Lichter
• 1972: Zurich, Galerie Bischofberger; Bonn, Magers Gallery
• 1973: Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle; Heidelberg, Art Association
• 1974: Bern, Art Museum
• 1975: Bochum, Galerie m; Berlin (West), New Society for Fine Arts; Eindhoven, Stedelijk Van Abbe Museum (with John Heartfield )
• 1976: Stockholm, Kulturhuset; Berlin (East), Galerie Arkade; Bonn, Parliamentary Society; Budapest, Artists Club; Zurich, Daniel Keel Gallery
• 1977: Bochum, Museum (with John Heartfield)
• 1978: Frankfurt am Main, Kunstverein; Berlin (West), Congress Hall; Arhus, town hall
• 1979: Duisburg, Lehmbruck Museum; Vienna, artist house
• 1980: Hanover, Art Association
• 1981: Rostock, Heinrich Mann Club; Dresden, Galerie Comenius (with Rolf Staeck); Berlin (East), Gallery Unter den Linden
• 1983: Breda, de Beyerd; Oslo, Hennie Onstad Cultural Center; Berlin (West), house on Lützowplatz
• 1985: Malmö, Kunsthalle
• 1986: Darmstadt, Kunsthalle (with Tomi Ungerer )
• 1987: Leipzig, gallery of the college for graphics and book art
• 1988: Berlin (East), Academy of the Arts; Munich, City Museum; Moscow, center of photojournalists; Palermo, Teatro Massimo
• 1989: San Francisco, Camera work
• 1990: Gothenburg, Art Museum
• 1991: Madrid, Museo Espanol de Arte Contemporáneo
• 1992: Rio de Janeiro, Biblioteca Publica
• 1993: Istanbul, Taksim Sanat Galerisi
• 1994: Jerusalem, Old Bezalel University; Los Angeles, Hammer Museum
• 1995: Chaumont, special exhibition at the 6th Festival d'Affiches
• 1996: Hardheim, Reum AG (retrospective); Helsinki, State Library
• 1997: Berlin, Festspielgalerie (with Manfred Butzmann ); Hamburg, KX on Kampnagel; Rühstädt / Brandenburg, Elbtalaue Nature Park, poster exhibition
• 1998: Vienna, Chamber of Labor
• 1999: Heidelberg, Kunstverein; Bremen, university
• 2001: Lyon, URDCA
• 2002: Havana, Fundación Ludwig de Cuba; Berlin, Trade Union House; Cologne, Galerie Heinz Holtmann
• 2003: Frankfurt / Oder, Museum Junge Kunst (with Jochen Gerz ); Ankara, Goethe Institute
• 2004: Leipzig, Moritzbastei, Brussels, Club Corbeau; Stuttgart, city library
• 2005: Berlin, Willy Brandt House; Plauen, Gallery in the Malzhaus, Hamburg-Harburg, Falckenberg Collection
• 2006: Brandenburg an der Havel, Kunsthalle Brennabor ; Chemnitz, art gallery
• 2007: Tübingen, Kunsthalle; Rostock, art gallery; Bitterfeld, gallery on Ratswall
• 2008: Berlin, Academy of Arts, Art and Revolt. intermedia '89 documents from Klaus Staeck's archive
• 2009: Berlin, Berlinische Galerie, Schöne Aussichten retrospective (together with the exhibition  John Heartfield : Zeitausschnitte )
• 2011: Berlin, Academy of Arts, Sigmar Polke. A homage. Balance of an artist friendship Polke / Staeck ; Potsdam, Old Orphanage, photogenic and poster (joint exhibition with Manfred Butzmann )
• 2013: Berlin, Academy of Arts, Arte Postale. Picture letters, artist postcards, mail art
• 2014: Pirmasens,  Arte Postale ; Berlin, New National Gallery Klaus Staeck. The art does not take place in the hall
• 2015: Berlin, Academy of the Arts, ART FOR ALL. Multiples, graphics, actions from the Staeck collection
• 2017: Güstrow
• 2018: Essen, Museum Folkwang , sand for the gears

Group exhibitions (selection)

• 1969: Heidelberg, intermedia 69
• 1971: Frankfurt am Main, experimenta 4
• 1976: Warsaw, 6th poster biennial; Berlin (East), Intergrafik
• 1977: Kassel, documenta 6
• 1982: Kassel, documenta 7
• 1987: Kassel, documenta 8

Awards

• 1970: 1st Zille Prize for socially critical graphics in Berlin
• 1978: German Critics' Prize for the visual arts
• 1989: Ludwig Thoma Medal from the City of Munich
• 1996: Gustav Heinemann Citizen Prize
• 1999: Kulturgroschen (highest award of the German Culture Council )
• 2007: Large Federal Cross of Merit
• 2010: Walk of Fame of the cabaret in Mainz (star, embedded in the pavement of the pedestrian zone between the Mainz lower house and the German cabaret archive , also the 65th star of the satire )
• 2011: Max Pechstein Prize (Honorary Prize)
• 2014: Integration Prize of the European Society Diaphania
• 2015: August Bebel Prize , the prize initiated by Günter Grass goes to people who, like August Bebel , have made a contribution to the German social movement. Christina Rau, the widow of the former Federal President Johannes Rau , gave the laudatory speech in the Willy Brandt House
• 2017: Order of Merit of the State of Berlin , awarded by the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Michael Müller
• 2018: Richard Benz Medal for Art and Science from the City of Heidelberg

literature

• Ingeborg Karst-Staeck (Ed.): Klaus Staeck. The rich have to get richer. Political posters ; Rowohlt Verlag 1973, ISBN 3-499-25040-3 .
• Klaus Staeck, text by Dieter Adelmann: Art does not take place in the hall. Political posters ; Rowohlt Verlag 1976, ISBN 3-498-06114-3 .
• Klaus Staeck (Ed.): ADAC ade. With contributions from Reiner Klingholz and Ulrich von Alemann. Steidl, Göttingen 1990, ISBN 978-3-88243-151-3 .
• Stephan von Wiese (Vorw.): Focus 2. The Seventies, drafts, Joseph Beuys for his 70th birthday, 1970–1991 , Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf im Ehrenhof , Düsseldorf 1991
• Klaus Staeck (ed.): Without order. Out and about in terms of art and politics. Steidl, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-88243-739-1 .
• Klaus Staeck (Ed.): Posters. Steidl, Göttingen 2000.
• Wolfgang Bittner : I'm getting involved! Klaus Staeck. In: I meddle. Striking German résumés. Horlemann Verlag, Bad Honnef 2006, ISBN 3-89502-222-5 .
• Klaus Staeck: No more fun . Comic biography by illustrator and copywriter Willi Blöß , Willi Blöß Verlag, Aachen , www.kuenstler-biografien.de, 1st edition, 2008, 27 pp.
• Klaus Staeck: Nice prospects. A retrospective . Catalog for the exhibition from May 29 to August 31, 2009 in the Berlinische Galerie, with texts by Matthias Flügge , Uwe Loesch, Uli Mayer-Johanssen, Jörn Merkert, Gerhard Steidl, Wolfgang Thierse , Thomas Wagner, Steidl Verlag , ISBN 978-3 -86521-979-4 (book trade) and ISBN 978-3-940208-07-1 (museum).
• Klaus Staeck (Ed.): Rasterfahndung / Sigmar Polke , Steidl, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-86930-283-6 .
• Robert Eberhardt : Klaus Staeck studio visit , Wolff Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-941461-08-6 .
• Alain Weill: Encyclopédie de l'affiche . Editions Hazan, Paris 2011, ISBN 978-2-7541-0582-8 , pp. 372–373 m. Fig.
• Museum Folkwang (ed.): Klaus Staeck. Sand for the transmission . Catalog for the exhibition from February 9 to April 8, 2018 in the Museum Folkwang Essen. Edition Folkwang / Steidl, Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-95829-435-6 .

Web links

Commons : Klaus Staeck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Klaus Staeck in the catalog of the German National Library
• Materials by and about Klaus Staeck in the documenta archive
• Website by Klaus Staeck
• Klaus Staeck publications at Steidl Verlag
• Censorship takes place occasionally: Klaus Staeck on the German way of dealing with political art
• Christel Heybrock: Klaus Staeck Early posters 1969–1989 . 2010 (with examples)
• Deutschlandfunk (DLF) cultural issues. Debates and documents from February 25, 2018: Poster artist Klaus Staeck "I cannot stand injustice"

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Brochure Klaus Staeck: I am making clear from the Prora documentation center for the special exhibition
2. ↑ Rolf Staeck , mailartists.wordpress.com, accessed on May 24, 2015.
3. ^ Eyewitness report by Klaus Staeck on the 1953 popular uprising in Bitterfeld on  jugendopposition.de  ( Federal Center for Civic Education  /  Robert Havemann Society  eV), viewed on March 20, 2017.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Sit down, six! - School stories from Germany (2/3). Missed Opportunities . Documentary by Christina Brecht-Benze on behalf of SWR. German premiere on December 15, 2005.
5. ↑ Interview with Klaus Staeck: I had to decide on an attitude early on
6. ^ Column on the Spiegel Affair: Mit Duden zur Demo , in: Berliner Zeitung of May 7, 2014.
7. ^ Klaus Staeck: Without order. Out and about in terms of art and politics. Göttingen 2000, p. 103.
8. ↑ The art does not take place in the hall - the poster artist Klaus Staeck , documentary by Andreas Ammer , 60 minutes, 2019, produced by SWR television
9. ↑ Klaus Staeck, Plakate , Göttingen 2000, p. 27.
10. ^ Political art: Everything tidy , in: Der Spiegel , edition 44/1972, p. 197.
11. ^ Klaus Staeck: Without order. Out and about in terms of art and politics. Göttingen 2000, p. 44.
12. ↑ I want to get off the list: Spiegel interview with Klaus Staeck , in: Der Spiegel , issue 4/1975.
13. ↑ Michael Roth: Dürer's mother. Berlin 2006, p. 177.
14. ^ Justification of violence , in: Der Spiegel , edition 22/1976, pp. 200–201.
15. ↑ Der Spiegel 25/1976, p. 10.
16. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 18, 1973.
17. ^ Died: Bruno Heck , in: Der Spiegel , issue 39/1989.
18. ↑ ^{a b c} Raimund Hoghe: Inner clocks, outer signs - a visit to the graphic artist Klaus Staeck , in: Die Zeit No. 40, October 1, 1982.
19. ↑ Die Zeit No. 16/1976 , April 9, 1976.
20. ↑ Der Spiegel 25/1976, p. 10.
21. ^ Judgment: Philipp Jenninger , in: Der Spiegel , edition 27/1976, p. 156.
22. ↑ Action for more democracy
23. ^ Johannes Heesters: A visit to a concentration camp without singing? , in: Spiegel Online from August 22, 2006.
24. ↑ Academy: Klaus Staeck re-elected ( memento of the original from August 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in art - The art magazine from May 11th, 2009. 
25. ↑ Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, May 4, 2009.
26. ↑ Klaus Staeck - Political retrospective of an angry man , review by Oliver Kranz on Deutschlandfunk from March 18, 2015, accessed May 24, 2015.
27. ^ Members of the Willy Brandt Circle. Willy-Brandt-Kreis, accessed on October 5, 2018 . 
28. ^ Klaus Staeck, Ernst Volland: Art and Politics. Political works from four seasons. Wetzlar 2012, p. 66.
29. ↑ Board of the sponsorship group. In: https://www.darmstaedter-signal.de/ . Retrieved January 26, 2019 . 
30. ^ Political artist Klaus Staeck: I will not allow myself to be instrumentalized in Spiegel-Online from June 24, 2004.
31. ↑ Klaus Staeck in an interview with Pascal Beucker: "David has a real chance against Goliath" . In: The daily newspaper: taz . February 28, 2018, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 4 ( taz.de [accessed on March 29, 2018]).
32. ^ Official website of the Akademie der Künste
33. ^ Official website of the Akademie der Künste
34. ↑ German Cultural Council congratulates Klaus Staeck on his 75th birthday ( memento of the original from March 6, 2013 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. , Communication from the German Cultural Council of February 28, 2013. 
35. ↑ Klaus Staeck receives August Bebel Prize ( Memento of the original from May 25, 2015 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. , Notification under News from May 6, 2015.