Klaus Staeck — Serving art and politics without order
book ‘Klaus Staeck — serving art and politics without order’ It is the first publication in Poland which is meant to be an exhaustive monograph of this artist. The book contains a comprehensive presentation of the...
Art versus politics is a theme that had been continuously present in art history of the twentieth century. It often happens that art serves political propaganda, but simultaneously art can be a tool of emancipation or widening/testing the limits of social language, when art strategies are used for extra-artistic purposes.
Klaus Staeck (born in 1938) is a political artist par excellence (in fact, he got the public status of politician). Being an outstanding follower and collaborator of Joseph Beuys, a participant of many editions of the Documenta in Kassel, and at present the president of the Academy of Arts in Berlin, he presents the interpretation of leftist ideas in his works (and notably posters). He consciously enters the area of ideological conflicts, treating art as an efficient tool for solving them. Since 1960 he has been a member of SPD (Social-democratic Party of Germany). During the Bundestag electoral campaign in 1972 he has produced over a million posters, postcards and stickers of his party. The poster entitled ‘Deutsche Arbeiter! Die SPD will euch eure Villen im Tessin wegnehmen’ (German workers, SPD wants to take away also your villas in Tessin) was published in 70.000 copies. For the first time he had then a case in court with CDU. Several dozen attempts of forbidding him to present his art have happened later. In 1973, along with Beuys, he founded the Freie Hochschule für Kreativität und Interdisziplinäre Forschung (Free College of Creativity and Interdisciplinary Sciences). In 1976 the ‘storming of the pictures in Bonn’ took place, when the annoyed MPs from CDU/CSU under the direction of later president of the Bundestag, Philipp Jenninger, torn a few posters off during an exhibition of Staeck’s works. This incident was commented in over 1500 articles in the press. During the following 100 exhibitions over 50 incidents attempts happened of breaking them off. In 1981, along with Peter Rühmkorf, Günter Grass, Heinrich Böll and Walter Jens, he has started the action ‘We don’t write for Axel Springer press’.
The exhibition in Katowice presented a full cross-section of Klaus Staeck’s art: political posters, photographs and objects. Its important part was the show of the famous pictures that compose the photographic book ‘Pornografie’ of 1971, in which we can find everything, what today composes the visual iconography of leftist movements, alter-globalism, and first of all the threats and oppressions against which they fight.
Art versus politics is a theme that had been continuously present in art history of the twentieth century. It often happens that art serves political propaganda, but simultaneously art can be a tool of emancipation or widening/testing the limits of social language, when art strategies are used for extra-artistic purposes.
Klaus Staeck (born in 1938) is a political artist par excellence (in fact, he got the public status of politician). Being an outstanding follower and collaborator of Joseph Beuys, a participant of many editions of the Documenta in Kassel, and at present the president of the Academy of Arts in Berlin, he presents the interpretation of leftist ideas in his works (and notably posters). He consciously enters the area of ideological conflicts, treating art as an efficient tool for solving them. Since 1960 he has been a member of SPD (Social-democratic Party of Germany). During the Bundestag electoral campaign in 1972 he has produced over a million posters, postcards and stickers of his party. The poster entitled ‘Deutsche Arbeiter! Die SPD will euch eure Villen im Tessin wegnehmen’ (German workers, SPD wants to take away also your villas in Tessin) was published in 70.000 copies. For the first time he had then a case in court with CDU. Several dozen attempts of forbidding him to present his art have happened later. In 1973, along with Beuys, he founded the Freie Hochschule für Kreativität und Interdisziplinäre Forschung (Free College of Creativity and Interdisciplinary Sciences). In 1976 the ‘storming of the pictures in Bonn’ took place, when the annoyed MPs from CDU/CSU under the direction of later president of the Bundestag, Philipp Jenninger, torn a few posters off during an exhibition of Staeck’s works. This incident was commented in over 1500 articles in the press. During the following 100 exhibitions over 50 incidents attempts happened of breaking them off. In 1981, along with Peter Rühmkorf, Günter Grass, Heinrich Böll and Walter Jens, he has started the action ‘We don’t write for Axel Springer press’.
The exhibition in Katowice presents a full cross-section of Klaus Staeck’s art: political posters, photographs and objects. Its important part is the show of the famous pictures that compose the photographic book ‘Pornografie’ of 1971, in which we can find everything, what today composes the visual iconography of leftist movements, alter-globalism, and first of all the threats and oppressions against which they fight.
