Joseph, Henning, Ursula

Joseph Beuys
(Germany, 1921-1986)

In collaboration with with Henninh Christiansen: Ich Versuche dich Freizulassen (machen), photograph (1969) Friendship, photograph (1969) Dance, photograph (1969) Celtic Symphony, photograph and audio recording (1970) Grosse grüne zelt symphonie, photograph (1980).

Joseph Beuys is arguably the most important post-war German artist as well as one of the most influential artists of the post-modern era. His mythic status clings to an apocryphal incident that stems from his experience as young Luftwaffe pilot: when his plane crashed in a desolate region of south Russia he was rescued by nomadic Tartars. They rubbed him with fat and wrapped him in felt to heal and warm his body. When he became a sculptor, he was known for these signature materials along with dirt, honey, blood, gold leaf and a dead hare.
 
The materials, which could become performances in and of themselves, were often elements in Beuys' "actions," His charismatic presence aided him in his belief that artists must play a wider role in society. His commitment to political reform led him to run for the German Bundestag in 1976. A professor at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, many of his “master students” such as Blinky Palermo, developed their own important artistic careers. His 1979 retrospective at New York's Guggenheim Museum solidified his international standing.

One of Beuys most important statements, "Everyone is an artist" also addressed our larger society. Though the statement has often been misunderstood, Beuys was concentrating on the large and small questions that society asks itself. He pointed out that what makes everyone an artist had to do with how everyone is looking for the best possible solution to a given problem.
(FO)


Henning Christiansen
(Born 1932, lives and works in Denmark)

Stone Sound Klang, audio recording (1969) Dust out of Brain, audio recording (1993), Green Ear Postcard, postcard (1984), In Vino Veritas, Xerox photo (1984).  With Ursula Reuter Christiansen: Satie auf Hoher See (1992) Peace-Life-Crash (1994), both as reproduction of photographic documentation. With Joseph Beuys: Ich Versuche dich Freizulassen (machen), photograph (1969) Friendship, photograph (1969) Dance, photograph (1969) Celtic Symphony, photograph and audio recording (1970) Grosse grüne zelt symphonie, photograph (1980). With John Cage: Links (52), Xerox photograph.

Danish artist Henning Christiansen began as a composer and clarinet player. He attended the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen in the early 1960’s. While finishing his studies, he travelled to Darmstadt in Germany where he joined with artists from the Fluxus movement. He has since become one of its a key figures.

Christiansen is the composer of a number of influential avant-garde works for orchestra, piano and other instruments. Responding to the Fluxus ideal of synthesis between art and life, Christiansen merged ambient sounds with images and objects in installations and actions. The range of instruments in his compositions expanded to include everyday objects. This concept of ‘anti-art’ and its challenge to any conventions that are restricting to creativity also brought him in close dialogue with Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik and Arthur Köpke in the 1960’s.

For this chapter of Saigon Open City, a range of Christiansen’s ‘actions’ and ‘concerts’ will be displayed as photographs and sound. Some are collaborations with Beuys, where Henning Christiansen was responsible for the acoustic side. Two are performed with Henning Christiansen’s wife, Ursula Reuter Christiansen Satie auf Hoher See (1992) and Peace-Life-Crash (1994). In the latter, the artists act as man and wife in an absurd domestic drama, a prime example of how their two oeuvres dynamically interweave and interfere.

Through his years as a professor at Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, Henning Christiansen’s persistent belief in a limitless concept of art has influenced artists of younger generations. He has exhibited and published widely, and in 2001 he and Ursula Reuter Christiansen represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale. (CNG)


Ursula Reuter Christiansen
(Born 1943, lives and works in Denmark)

In collaboration with Henning Christiansen: Satie auf Hoher See (1992) and Peace-Life-Crash (1994), both as reproduction of photographic documentation.

Ursula Reuter was born in Germany and studied at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf under Joseph Beuys. Life as artistic material, her central concept, resonated with the progressive German art scene of the mid-1960’s. Reuter later moved to Denmark and was part of its experimental community. She joined the Danish artist group Eks-skolen and became involved with the feminist movement.

In her paintings, drawings, sculpture, installations and films, Reuter engages with her surroundings in surprising and uncompromising ways. She challenges the tradition of neatness in art. Her visual landscape wrestles with destruction and eruption.

Reuter’s development of the principles of Beuys has resulted in a unique combination of social engagement, archetypical mythology and personal and experiential storytelling. The diversity of her practice and the difficulty to position her within a specific artistic movement is a further indication of her commitment to the transformative potential in art. 

Together with her husband Henning Christiansen, Ursula Reuter represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale in 2001, where the process-oriented methods of both artists gained renewed pertinence. For Saigon Open City, two of their collaborative performances will be displayed as photographic documentation Satie auf Hoher See from 1992 and Peace-Life-Crash from1994, is staged around a dinning table that ends up being sawn in two halves. The artists act as themselves, as husband and wife but also symbolically represent a higher level of Man and Woman. Domestic symbolism resonates throughout their collaborations.  Ursula Reuter has exhibited widely, and has taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg and at the Danish Academy of Fine Arts where she holds a professoriate.
(CNG)

 

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