Manfred Spies (graphic designer)

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Self-Portrait (2006)

Manfred Spies (born May 6, 1941 in Düsseldorf ) is a German artist and graphic designer .

life and work

Like his classmate Sigmar Polke , Spies left high school before graduating from high school. In the 1960s he studied design at the Folkwang School in Essen . From 1965 to 1967 he was its AStA chairman. From 1965 to 1970 he created concert and theater posters . At the same time he dealt with Op Art and produced screen prints and light objects. In the 1970s Spies became known nationwide for provocative posters and art campaigns . He sat down since the late 1960s critically a. a. with the art market (“Art comes from selling”), with Catholic sex theory, with freedom of expression (“Freedom lives in quarantine”), xenophobia, pornography and with the violence in German society (“Kill the cop - in you! ") apart. Since 1976, Spies mainly used the medium of the billboard. He rented and paid for the publicly accessible areas himself and designed them with more than 500 motifs, which he called "thought-strokes". This public meddling earned him 16 investigations and trials, as well as death threats. It was always about Art. 5 GG . Complainants were politicians, trade unionists ( Heinz Oskar Vetter ), the media and private individuals. The preliminary investigations were all discontinued, and Spies won the trials without exception. The response in radio, television and the press was meanwhile obvious. When Spies illegally pasted 174 large areas of Reemtsma advertising (“I like to smoke”) with the word “cough” in Düsseldorf in 1986 , the tobacco company dared not prosecute Spies.

Spies was a member of the Federal Association of Visual Artists from 1976 to 2004 , of which he was chairman in Düsseldorf from 1977 to 1979. After an eye operation ( microangiopathy ), the chief doctor predicted that he would go blind in two years. Spies gave up his creative work and in 1982 founded the “Tannenbaum” bar in Düsseldorf-Derendorf. From 1982 to 1996 he organized exhibitions in the gallery of the same name. Spies' retirement was due to a diagnostic error. Since the pub was sold in 1998, Spies has been working in seclusion as an artist, designer and author. Since 2009 he has lived alternately in Düsseldorf and Pak Chong, Thailand.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

  • 1968 Rolled pictures. Artinart gallery, London
  • 1970 "Information art". Dusseldorf
  • 1971 theater posters. Bremen
  • 1974 "King of Football". House on Lützowplatz , Berlin
  • 1975 Galerie Vieler and Bender, Düsseldorf
  • 1978 Osterwalder Gallery, Hamburg
    • SPD headquarters, Düsseldorf
  • 1997 "Kleine Freiheit Düsseldorf". City Museum Düsseldorf

Group exhibitions

  • 1967 Essen, Baedecker
  • 1973 theater posters. Theater Museum, Essen
  • 1974 posters. Art market, Göttingen
  • 1975 "Against the Current". House of Lodge, Düsseldorf
  • 1976 "Neighborhood", Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
  • 1979 "Art and the Public". IX. IAA Congress (International Association of Art), Stuttgart
  • 1981 "Quotes". Art collection of North Rhine-Westphalia , Düsseldorf
    • “Annual exhibition of Düsseldorf artists”, Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf
  • 1983 "Caricature, Satire, Irony". State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf
  • 1985 “Take DADA seriously!”. Art Museum , Düsseldorf
  • 1987 “Artists see Europe”, billboard campaign by 15 artists in 12 European cities
  • 1988 "Encounters". Palace of Art, Vilnius
  • 1989 "40 years of the FRG". Rheinaue, Bonn
    • "XI Design in Germany", Inter Nationes, Bonn
  • 1990 "Young Rhineland - An Idea for Peace". City Museum Düsseldorf , Bonn , Moscow
  • 1993 "Parallel Action", 25 years of art in NRW, Städt. Oberhausen Castle Gallery

Actions

  • 1976 poster "Art comes from selling" as the prelude to more than 500 "thoughts" in the public, Düsseldorf. Actions followed in Cologne, Essen, Duisburg, Viersen, Münster, Hanover, Frankfurt, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Stuttgart, Bremen, Hamburg, Berlin, Kassel, Mettmann and other places.

Fonts

  • Manfred Spies: Thinking attacks. A documentation. Bensheim: päd.-extra-Buchverlag 1980 ISBN 3-921450-87-X
  • 1982–1989, "Tannennadel", sporadically published critical articles in a publication of "Tannenbaum"
  • 1982–1998, “klartext”, articles published sporadically in “biograph - Kultur für Düsseldorf”, Düsseldorf

literature

  • Wolfgang Benz (ed.), Hannelore Brunhöber: The Federal Republic of Germany: Culture. Volume 3, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-596-24314-9 , p. 271.
  • H. Schickl, F.-M. Zipfl: language fields . Verlag Handwerk und Technik, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-582-01451-7 .
  • Paolo Bianchi (Ed.): Graffiti. Wall art and wild pictures. Birkhäuser, Stuttgart a. a. 1984, ISBN 3-7643-1617-9 .
  • Friedhelm Niggemeier: Effects of advertising. Vista-Point-Verlag, Cologne 1988.
  • Art comes from selling. Kunstforum International, Vol. 19, 1/77
  • Wild pictures. Kunstforum International, Vol. 50, 4/82

Web links

Commons : Manfred Spies  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Spies, Manfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German political graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf