Gerhard Jürgen Blum-Kwiatkowski

Gerhard Jürgen Blum-Kwiatkowski at the opening of the Argumenta exhibition in Łódź , 2005

Gerhard Jürgen Blum-Kwiatkowski (born October 22, 1930 in Elbing , East Prussia ; † August 11, 2015 in Hünfeld ) was a German-Polish artist who lived and worked in Poland until 1974 . He was a representative of Concrete Art as well as the founder, director and initiator of numerous museums, exhibitions and projects.

Life

Blum-Kwiatkowski occupied himself with acrobatics in his youth. After the end of National Socialism , he was briefly captured by the Soviets in 1945 , but was able to flee and return to Elbing. In 1949 he was referred to what was once East Prussia as an "unsafe element" for pump construction, where he found a connection to a secret university and academy "to save the Polish intelligentsia". 1952 to 1957 he studied philosophy of art and constructive design.

In 1956 he was appointed professor by the academy after seven years of activity. It followed u. a. co-founding the club Czerwona Oberża ( The Red Hostel ) and the art laboratory Galeria EL in Elbląg, which he directed from its foundation in 1961 to 1974.

In 1974 Blum-Kwiatkowski moved to the Federal Republic of Germany , where he first lived in the Cornberg monastery near Bad Hersfeld and worked as a teacher at seven adult education centers. By 1987 he developed and implemented a concept in which painting schools were connected with exhibition spaces: Art stations in Fulda , Bad Hersfeld, Eschwege , Bad Salzschlirf and Kleinsassen as well as in Cornberg Monastery and Rittershain Castle were created in cooperation with the adult education centers .

The Kleinsassen art station , founded in 1979, is of particular importance, in which , in addition to exhibitions, an art week as well as numerous activities, symposia and lectures were held every year. The art station's projects also include the Rhön Art Street, which was created in 1986 and where sculptures were installed in open spaces. Blum-Kwiatkowski founded the Free Art Academy in Kleinsassen , which later moved to the Museum Modern Art Hünfeld .

In 1988 Blum-Kwiatkowski opened the project gallery New Space in Fulda , where u. a. Artists from the GDR exhibited ( heirs of the Bauhaus , 1990), and the museum “ Signs of the Times” . In 1990 he settled in Hünfeld and founded the Museum Modern Art with an attached painting school on the site of a former gasworks . The Forum for Concrete Art followed in 1993 in St. Peter's Church in Erfurt and in 1996 the Museum of Reductive Art in Świeradów-Zdrój , Poland.

In 1997 he started realizing the project The Open Book in Hünfeld. The concept consists in attaching texts of Concrete Poetry (including by Eugen Gomringer ) to building walls, which are provided by their owners. The open book now has more than 130 "pages"; a catalog for this project was published in September 2007.

In 2005 he created the permanent exhibition Motiva in the Vienna Congress Center Austria Center Vienna . From 2006 the exhibition series The intelligible non-violent art followed , as well as exhibitions by the artist group Intelligible processes .

Blum-Kwiatkowski died on August 11, 2015 in Hünfeld at the age of 84.

Museum Modern Art Hünfeld

The Museum Modern Art Hünfeld, realized in cooperation with the city of Hünfeld in 1990 on the site of a former gas works, became the center of Blum-Kwiatkowski's activities. Large parts of his collection of over 4,000 works of art are also located here.

The main building, two old gas boilers and now also a newly built pavilion that connects the building and boiler serve as exhibition rooms. There is also a sculpture garden on the outside area, supplemented by a former railway embankment at the rear of the main building.

In 1994 the artist Heinz Kasper initiated the project Every Meter for Art to finance the museum . The sponsored run and the associated exhibition took place in ten cities.

Annual exhibitions have been held in the museum since 2003, with around 30 to 40 rooms available for one artist each. A catalog with information on the works and artists is published annually.

In connection with the New Space Gallery Fulda and the Museum Modern Art Hünfeld , the art association IDEA was also created .

Exhibitions and projects

• 1977: 100 Days of Documenta , Cornberg Monastery
• 1984: Appearance and Reality , Cornberg Monastery
• 1986: Rhön Art Street, Kleinsassen Art Station
• 1987: Vertical - Diagonal - Horizontal , Kleinsassen Art Station
• 1987: Spanning , Kleinsassen Art Station
• 1987: Freiraum - Four Generations of Constructivist Movements in Polish Art , Kleinsassen Art Station
• 1988: Constructive Movements , New Space Gallery, Fulda
• 1988: Zero-Dimension , New Space Gallery, Fulda / Architecture Museum Breslau / Hipphalle Gmunden
• 1990: Heirs to the Bauhaus , New Space Gallery, Fulda
• 1991: Redukta , Warsaw Art Center
• 1992: Project for the open space , Fahner Heights (Erfurt)
• 1994: Every meter for art , project by Heinz Kasper, Museum Modern Art Hünfeld
• 1995: Europe specifically international , Galerie Les Lebanim, Ness Ziona (Israel) / 1999: Museum Modern Art Hünfeld
• since 1997: The open book , Hünfeld
• 1999: The Infinite Line , Museum of Reductive Art, Świeradów-Zdrój (Poland)
• 2000: Europe-concrete-reductive , Museum Modern Art Hünfeld
• since 2003: Annual exhibitions, Museum Modern Art Hünfeld
• 2005: Retrospective 1952–2004 , Kleinsassen Art Station
• 2005: Argumenta , Atlas Art Gallery, Łódź
• 2005: Motiva permanent exhibition, Austria Center Vienna
• 2006: The intelligible nonviolent art , Atlas Art Gallery, Łódź / 2007: Kleinsassen Art Station / 2007: Gmunden / 2008: Galeria EL, Elbląg
• 2007: Internacional - Constructivo - Concreto - Reductivo - Inteligible , Aranjuez (Spain)
• 2008: The non-objective world of thought, Konrad Zuse Hotel, Hünfeld
• 2008: The Open Book along the Kegelspielradweg
• 2007: Publication of the catalog for the project The Open Book
• 2009: Intelligible Processes - Art as a Philosophy of Life , Altana Gallery, Dresden

Awards

Blum-Kwiatkowski has received numerous prizes and awards, including a .:

• 1970: First prize from the Elbląg Cultural Association
• 1974: First Prize Polish Artist and Theorist Wroclaw
• 1992: First Prize Triennale, Art and Energy , Wroclaw
• 1996: First prize for the best picture of the year, BWA Gallery Lublin
• 2000: First prize from the Reading Foundation for the project The Open Book
• 2002: First Prize - Polish Artist of the Kobro Foundation, Łódź
• 2003: First Prize - Polish Art Theorist of the Stajuda Foundation, Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw
• 2008: Gloria Artis Medal for Cultural Merit , first culture award from the Polish Ministry of Culture

Picture gallery

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  Cone sculpture (2008)

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  Cone sculpture (2008)

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  Sculpture (2011)

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  Open Book (2009)

swell

• Gerhard Jürgen Blum-Kwiatkowski: Retrospective 1952–2004 , catalog accompanying the exhibition, 2005.
• 1974–1994: 20 years Jürgen Blum, art activities in East Hesse , 1994.
• The intelligible nonviolent art , catalog accompanying the exhibition, 2006.
• Intelligible processes - art as a philosophy of life , catalog accompanying the exhibition, 2009.
• Gerhard Jürgen Blum-Kwiatkowski: About the Museum Modern Art Hünfeld.
• Gerhard Jürgen Blum-Kwiatkowski (initiator): The Open Book , 2007.

Web links

Commons : Gerhard Jürgen Blum-Kwiatkowski  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Gerhard Jürgen Blum-Kwiatkowski in the catalog of the German National Library
• Museum Modern Art Hünfeld : Official homepage. Contains information about the museum and painting school as well as numerous pictures, etc. a. to the project The Open Book . German and English version.
• Altana-Galerie Dresden : Information and pictures on the current exhibition Intelligible Processes - Art as a Philosophy of Life (April 24 to July 25, 2009).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rhön Art Street (World-of-Form)
2. ↑ A life for art. Obituary on osthessen-news.de on August 12, 2015. Accessed on August 12, 2015.