Stille Helden e.V. Lecture

‘IFP, Büro Berlin, De Zaak (from Groningen), Ingold Airlines (Berne), ABR Stuttgart and Frigo (from Lyons) are not offices where publicity brochures, refrigerators or airline tickets can be ordered. These are the names or logos that artists, either as individuals or in temporary or permanent collaboration, are using for their activities. A phenomenon that fits in with the reality we are presented with every day through publications, and which in Germany has also been called Realkunst. For some time, an increasing number of artists have been turning way from the practice of art as a form of personal expression. The ready-made is making its entry again, artists disguise their sculptures as articles of furniture or as bus shelters, and a new attitude can also be discerned towards the artists calling as a unique and individual activity. Works are being produced collectively more than before, and in a number of cases even names of companies have been adopted as an identity. Stille Helden e.V. (Silent Heroes) is a collective from Hamburg that thought of bringing some of these groups together in the form of an Art Congress during Forum, the art fair that took place in March this year in Hamburg. The context was a very suitable choice because precisely these art fairs (such as the Kunstrai in Amsterdam, Art Cologne, Art Basel do their utmost to stick to their logo on top of all other logos of galleries, producers of prints or artists. Not only to attract masses of tourists and buyers, but also to create the impression that this exhibition is approved of a seal of quality. Stille Helden e.V. give their activities the title Actions-Exhibitions-Publications-Prizes and can be divided into (‘engaged leg’) Ute Meta Bauer and (‘free leg’) Susanne Homann. Their work is interdisciplinary (preferably with guest artists), they practice 'postcapitalist realism', they move 'between the chairs' and call themselves negroes at the bar. On June 5 one of the Stille Helden, Susanne Homann, will give an introductory talk about the principles they proposed during their Art Congress '88 in Hamburg.’ (‘Negroes at the bar’, Newsletter De Appel, 3 (1988) 3.)