Performance & Live Art in Cologne.

From the 80s to the 90s towards the 00s.

Thist text was first published in french in ESSE. Art Magazin (Montreal)

In Cologne, Western Germany, more than 5000 visual artists are living - this is a result of the gallery boom of the eighties, the big success of the so-called „young wild“ painters (like Walter Dahn, Jiri Dokoupil, Albert Oehlen, Martin Kippenberger and many others) and the still very important Art Cologne Fair. Among such a big number of artists you certainly would find some who are involved in live art, who are working on performance as a part or an extension of their visual art work. And there are a few, who are just doing performances and nothing else.

In the late 70s and early 80s there were some people working in this context - like Mike Hentz with his group MINUS DELTA T or the photographer Jürgen Klauke, some of the „yound wilds“, too - but usually, after getting established artists, they stopped their live art ambitions since, apparently, this seems to demand more than to paint pictures or to produce sculptures.

A very strong influence for most of the Cologne performers was the work and personality of FLUXUS-artist Al Hansen, who lived in Cologne during the 80s and up to his death in 1995. He founded a place called the „Ultimate Akademie“ (in 1987), which was a weird avantgarde-spot in the very beginning, where used to sit in with 12 people from 10 different countries, smoking joints and telling stories of the older days - how he brought Andy Warhol the Brillo Soap Box (whether this is true or not) and how they ran these happenings in New York. Al didn `t participate in so many performances show anymore, but he always was a performance on his own, and whole lot of people kept interst in getting on stage because of him.

I at that time was running a literary magazine and we had experimented with several live shows in a university theatre space in order to extend and transcend the pure literature context, doing something, what we intended to be performance art without even knowing anything about its tradition. And so it looked like.

When we met Al, everything became clear from one moment to the other - we organized our next show in the Ultimate Akademie and the results got much closer to the performance idea at once. I think that most of the other people, who came together in the Ultimate Akademie (or in the surroundings), had this in common: the experience of gathering in the right place at the right time, finding a whole crowd of artists with similar ideas. In 1988 and 1989 a lot of weird and spontaneous shows were organized there or in other independent spaces like the „Atelier Sömmering“ and the „Gallery 68elf“, since the Cologne Art scene is a close network.

I organized the first and second „Bad-Language-Show“, two 3-days-festivals in June and Octobre 1989: with Al Hansen, Hans-Jörg Tauchert, Inge Broska, Parzival and some others. And as you will see in the following, here are some of these protagonists together I will talk about in ths article. Since that time (1989/90) when live art became a continous item in the undergroung art world of cologne (that means: at least two or three shows a month, not to think about all the single performances on vernissages etc.): since that time performance art didn `t disappear anymore. There were up `s and down `s but I think, it `s true that it always became stronger and stronger up to now. Very important events took place like „100 performances“ (à one minute), organized by Hans-Jörg Tauchert nd Rolf J. Kirsch in 1994, or the „Performance Menu“, organized by Rolf Hinterecker in 1995 and 1997, where the audience could order personal performances at the table. Up to 50 performers took part in these shows. But to be sincere, I have to say that the richness of the Cologne Performance scene is ist disadvantage at the same time: because of all these opportunities to act, because of all these performers in the closer surroundings, one has to admit a certain lack of communication which is a true aporia especially in terms of performance. People don `t travel enough, they are content to stage in Cologne. And they rarely try to organize international festivals with performers from foreign countries - so many are too much concentrated on the local conditions.

An exception of this rule is Boris Nieslony, who plays a very important role in the world wide performance network. We came in touch with him in 1992, since then his influence on young performance artists can ´t hardly be overestimated. Contineously, he `s bringing international performers (from Japan, USA and many european countries) to Cologne or other cities in the neighbourhood. In summer 1998 a group of 20 people from Canada (among them the Le Lieu-people) was here for one month, for example. These activities gave local performers the opportunity to measure their own work with the world level. And on the other hand it was possible to understand the differences - the „world network performers“, many of them between 40 and 60 years, are often acting very seriously and ritually, their performances would take 30 minutes or even one hour. But that what was developped in Cologne, belongs to another esthetics: it `s usually short and often funny: performance clips of 5-10 minutes, a period of 20 minutes not exceeding. This time measure is not only a  quantitative argument, because movements and behaviour during the performance are different. If the piece is very short, every gesture gets much more value. What happens in this time, is very concentrated. So, in Cologne, you will not often find performances working with „nothingness“, with meaningful passing of time. But you will find a lot of pieces basing on just one idea, that makes the intention clear: that means, it has to do with radical reduction.

But let ´s get concrete.

First Boirs Nieslony who isn `t only an organizer, but also one of the most fascinating performers I know. Although he belongs to another tradition, which has ist roots in the 70s and 80s, you see the minimalizing, reductive trace in his work. An important part of his live art is the cooperation with 7 other artists in the so-called „Black Market“-performance group (including people like Jaques van Poppel (NL), Jürgen Fritz (FRG), Norbert Klassen (CH), Nigel Rolfe (IRE), Roi Vaara (FIN) a.o.) In his single works Nieslony treats with massacres: and as hard as this sounds, his performances often tend to be. Once in Berlin there was a festival with a whole lot of really fucking performances. Boris didn `t give any comment, but he made the last performance of the evening: and this definitely went beyond the limits. He used to stand there, very calmly and put pictures of those massacre victims in front of his face. The tension was getting higher and higher, in relation to a lasting silence. The audience seemed to be driven back - towards the wall through a wave of intensitiy. Al last, he just moved a little children `s rattle, and that was the moment for me to get off because I couldn `t stand it anymore. Afterwards he broke some sheets of glass on his head, bleeds, and the show is over.

It `s not always that hard for the public when Boris Nieslony performs, but working with intensities is surely a big issue of his work. In Bangkok 1997, for example, he made a very simple thing, maybe just taking a rubberball, letting it fall on the floor sometimes, but the framework of time and attention was so strict, that also these tiny actions are strongly stressed.

Afterwards (still the same performance) he sat in a corner on a chair, and he made „mäh!“ (like a goat) - and one guy stood up, ran over to him and gave him a slap in his face. And at one Boris made „mäh!“ again, and the guy (it was Parzival, who is mentioned below) came again and beated him... The agreement was that Parzival should always him harder the louder Boris exclaimed his „mäh!“ - and he said it louder and louder - and Parzival had to slap in his face amost 30 times...

Two of the active performers in Cologne, working as a couple as well as single performers are Inge Broska (born 1942) and Hans-Jörg Tauchert (born 1940). They were two of the very first members of the Ultimate Akademie, and especially Tauchert were organizing a big part of the Ultimate exhibitions and performance shows. Inge Broska was working as a curator of Germany `s only Women `s Art Museum in the near-by Bonn. Their performances have some roots in the FLUXUS tradition, but they are creating an individual and strange context, that has to do with their biografies. Inge for example, before studying art at Daniel Spoerri, was learning domestic economy so what she does has often to do with eat art, with ancient receptions how to prepare traditional rhinish dishes. Hans-Jörg is very strong politcally engaged, coming from Berlin, he has a myrxistic and leftist background, but he puts it into action in his very own way, which looks like quite bizarre, sometimes.

Especially, what they do together belongs to the best and funniest, you will find in Cologne performance art. It often has a old-fashioned touch, but this is important, because it keeps things alive, that most of the people don `t know anymore - how the rhineland was 50 years ago for example. That means, these performances conserve parts of regional history, which dissappear all over the world: since globalization levels the differences and characteristics. But it would be wrong to reduce their work just on these ingredients. There are important implications treating (and re-influencing) modern man `s life, as you find in their action „Kontaktcafé“ [contact café]: they have several television stations, removed all the inside, only the wooden body is left, and they let people communicate through the hole in the middle, giving them cake and coffee.

Their performances usually consist of different „clips“, so it `s not easy to describe a whole thing - let `s take one detail that often serves as a splendid finish of diffrent performances, called „Roll over Strauss“: you will hear Walzer music of Johann Strauss and they dance... The whole floor is full of wheat and then they would roll on the floor to the rhythm of the music, getting over and over full with wheat.

In another thing Inge buries Hans-Jörg under pieces of lawn, and she pours water on it and says something about how to keep a garden growing.
One guy of the younger generation (born 1961) is Parzival, who had to do with almost every art group or movement or space in Cologne, since the late eighties. He `s maybe more an activist than a performer: because his work is strongly based on ideas, more than on pictures. So, he would sit on a table and shows a piece with the title: „Beat out a performance himself“ (what `s a german expression for: „simply doing it“): and then he beats his head over some minutes quite hard, to helb the performance to come to life. A thing that he often does is the „Scream after Edvard Munch“: he wears a copy mask with the picture of the famous Munch-painting and then he screeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmsssss in a way, that everybody can imagine the silent shout of the painting: this shout full of pain and desperation. Another thing is his karate performance: a quite funny one - he yells like a karateka and beats some sheets of stryrofoam into pieces: with big show elements and all this stuff, and it `s only ridiculous - in the end he uses his head for destroying them...

An absolute extraordinary role in the Cologne performance scene plays Beate Ronig (born 1957): she `s a personality on her own, and there is not a big difference between life and stage. Thus, her `live art´ can be taken literarilly, because it has to do a lot with her everyday experience and perception. It is a mixture between story-telling, theatre and art elements - and sometimes it can take quite long. For example, she realized one piece called „Soap Performance. Political-social Performance“: this is a very long and sad story of a ex-model, who is rich, young and beautiful, but suffering of a boring life, talking on the telephone the whole day. A nuclear plant is built directly beside her house, and later it explodes. All is running bad. It is a surreal and dark science fiction world, her genetically produced children are eaten by a crocodile, she is sentenced to death for murder, in the end the model dies on the electric chair and so on... Very difficult to explain, with the dramaturgy of a theatre piece, but out on the scene in a incredibly funny and trivial way, like a trash-soap as you can `t find them in the TV. Her shorter pieces transfer to everyday life, to simple people and how they behave and talk (Beate often uses Cologne dialect...): so once she showed in 5 miute-performances how a man on one hand, or a woman on the other hand walk through a public with a dog, pointing out typical gender differences. Another thing: she told the male audience that everyone of them has a disturbed sexuality in relationsship to their mother. She gave carrots to the men, then somebody says: „Come to mother!“ And then the men had to move towards „mother“ holding the carrot, that signifies an erection. Funny observations and reactions of the participants. Afterwards psychological analysis.

One of the youngest performers of the Cologne art scene is Anja Ibsch (born 1968), who is working in a specific field of body art. It has not much to do with the traditional approaches towards this.
Her work „Incorporation“ is quite representing in this context: she puts a table on the stage, puts a glass and a bottle on the table. Then she begins to brush the floor, keeps the dust. She walks through the public and cleans the floor between their feet, brushes all the four walls of the place. Afterwards she returns on the stage, pours all the dust into the glass, mixes it up with water and drinks it. The intention is, to build a „topography“ of different places in the world, a „topography“ in her own stomach, so she realized this piece in Cologne, Berlin, Tunis, Bangkok, Tokyo among others.

Another performance was called „The Run“: it was the last day in the „Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn“, that had to be closed for some years because of renovation. Anja started her piece in a theatre, but what she did, was to run away... In the theatre you could dia-positives of the museum `s artworks in a fast sequence. At the same time Anja was running through the museum, passing all these works. She was running through the first, second and third floor - and then retour. Passing the stage again, where the kilometre were counted... So she did for 90 minutes and 10 kilometres...
These are only some examples of the 50-100 different performance artists in Cologne or in the direct neighbourhood. The selection is small and subjective, that `s for sure; but in my opinion it is the most adeguate, not only respecting the quality of each `s artistic work, but also regarding, that these people maybe are the most active ones, looking for international communication as well. And whereever you are: live art can only remain alive, provocative, political ambitious, intensively, if it regards a wider perspective, a vision of free contact of emancipated individuals. And this is the main thing that it can teach people.

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