Fluxus and Beyond: Ursula Burghardt, Benjamin Patterson

"Fluxus and Be­yond: Ur­su­la Burghardt, Ben­jamin Pat­ter­son" at the Mu­se­um Lud­wig takes a fresh look at a 1960s art move­ment that cont­in­ues to ex­ert its in­flu­ence. The ex­hi­bi­tion fo­cus­es on Ur­su­la Burghardt (1928–2008) and Ben­jamin Pat­ter­son (1934–2016), two artists who de­spite their in­volve­ment in the Fluxus net­work re­mained on its pe­riph­ery. As a re­sult, their work is lit­tle known to­day.

In the 1960s, Cologne was one of the Rhine­land’s vi­brant artis­tic cen­ters and a meet­ing place for in­ter­na­tio­n­al artists. The Stu­dio of Elec­tron­ic Mu­sic of the West Ger­man Ra­dio (WDR) was an im­por­tant mag­net, and the Fluxus move­ment took up el­e­ments of new mu­sic. Start­ing with mu­si­cal con­cepts par­tic­u­lar­ly in­flu­enced by John Cage, Fluxus artists de­vel­oped ac­tions and per­for­mances that merged art and life and com­bined di­verse me­dia. Nu­mer­ous events that brought to­gether mu­sic, lit­er­a­ture, art, and ar­chi­tec­ture were held in the Cologne stu­dio of Ger­man artist Mary Bauermeis­ter. This is where Burghardt and Pat­ter­son met in 1960.

The first part of the ex­hi­bi­tion fo­cus­es on the ear­ly days of Fluxus in Cologne, Wies­ba­den, and Wup­per­tal with a view of con­cur­rent events in Paris and New York. It al­so ex­amines the so­cial and his­tor­i­cal con­text of Cologne dur­ing the post­war pe­ri­od. With its ruined lots, re­con­struct­ed build­ings, and presti­gious new struc­tures, the ci­ty was marked by both re­pair and sup­pres­sion. Nazi ide­ol­o­gy did not sud­den­ly van­ish from post­war West Ger­man so­ci­e­ty. In 1959, hun­dreds of an­ti­semitic at­tacks oc­curred through­out Ger­many, in­clud­ing one on the new­ly re­con­struct­ed sy­n­a­gogue on Roon­s­trasse in Cologne.

In the se­cond and third parts of the ex­hi­bi­tion, in­di­vi­d­u­al sec­tions are de­vot­ed to the work of Burghardt and Pat­ter­son.

Ben­jamin Pat­ter­son, a trained mu­si­cian from Pitts­burgh, moved to Cologne in 1960, where he pro­duced a con­sid­er­able num­ber of com­po­si­tions. To­gether with Ge­orge Ma­ci­u­nas, he or­ganized the Fluxus In­ter­na­tio­nale Fest­spiele Neuester Musik fes­ti­val in Wies­ba­den in 1962. This event is re­gard­ed as the birth of Fluxus. The “deep-root­ed alie­na­tion” Pat­ter­son ex­pe­ri­enced in the white-dom­i­nat­ed art world caused him to in­ter­rupt his ca­reer for twen­ty-two years and take a salaried job in the Unit­ed States. He did not re­turn to art-mak­ing un­til 1988. The ex­hi­bi­tion fo­cus­es on this lat­er cre­a­tive pe­ri­od.

➤ A com­­­plete bi­og­ra­­­phy on the life of Ben­jamin Pat­ter­son can be found here.

Ur­su­la Burghardt, who was born in Halle an der Saale, fled to Buenos Aires in 1936 with her par­ents to es­cape the per­se­cu­tion of Jew­ish peo­ple in Nazi Ger­many. In Buenos Aires she lat­er studied paint­ing and print­mak­ing, and from 1952 to 1953 she studied sculp­ture in Paris. Burghardt had al­ready par­ti­ci­pat­ed in many ex­hi­bi­tions in South Amer­i­ca when she moved to Cologne in 1957 with her hus­band, com­pos­er Mauri­cio Kagel. She was great­ly af­fect­ed by the ex­pe­ri­ence of liv­ing as a Jew in West Ger­many, which at the time ram­pant­ly de­nied its in­volve­ment in the Holo­caust. Be­tween 1960 and 1965, fam­i­ly cir­cum­s­tances com­pelled Burghardt to for­go a stu­dio for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od and take a break from art-mak­ing to care for her two daugh­ters.

➤ A com­­­plete bi­og­ra­­­phy on the life of Ur­su­la Burghardt can be found here.

Pat­ter­son main­tained close ties with Fluxus dur­ing his long hia­tus, and his pie­ces cont­in­ued to be per­formed, fre­quent­ly with his par­ti­ci­pa­tion. Al­though now rec­og­nized as one of the co­foun­ders of Fluxus, his work has long been ig­nored. Burghardt, on the other hand, was in close con­tact with Fluxus artists but nev­er be­came a mem­ber of its in­n­er cir­cle. In 1965, fol­low­ing her hia­tus, Burghardt turned away from ab­s­tract sculp­ture and be­gan re­cre­at­ing ev­ery­day items us­ing me­t­al and fab­ric. By sub­sti­tut­ing their usu­al ma­te­rials, she achieved an alie­na­tion that re­sult­ed in de­fa­miliarized ob­jects. Burghardt’s work and its sub­ver­sive and per­for­ma­tive sig­ni­f­i­cance have not been ad­e­qu­ate­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed un­til now.

➤ You can find the ex­hi­bi­­­tion book­let here: in En­glish / in Ger­­man

"Fluxus and Be­yond: Ur­su­la Burghardt, Ben­jamin Pat­ter­son" will be ac­com­panied by a com­pre­hen­sive pro­gram of con­certs, read­ings, and work­shops.

Cu­ra­tor: Bar­bara En­gel­bach
Cu­ra­to­rial ad­vi­sors: An­ne­mone Chris­tians-Bernsee (NS-Doku­men­ta­tion­szen­trum Köln, Cologne) and ju­lia el­iz­a­beth neal (His­to­ry of Art De­part­ment, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan)

The ex­hi­bi­tion is gener­ous­ly sup­port­ed by the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Sci­ence of the State of North Rhine-West­phalia and the Peter and Irene Lud­wig Foun­da­tion. Fur­ther fund­ing comes from the Friends of the Wall­raf-Richartz-Mu­se­um and the Mu­se­um Lud­wig e.V., Mil­tenyi Biotec and the BEA­T­RIX LICHTKEN STIF­TUNG.