Margret in Artnews "At White Columns, Bouffant Hair Is a Vintage Ball-and-Chain"

Günter K.s "Margret", untitled, Vintage Print,1970/11/04,10,5x 7,5, Courtesy Galerie Susanne Zander / Delmes & Zander

THE DAILY PIC: This is one of many chilling images from "Margret: Chronicle of an Affair- May 1969 to December 1970", a gripping exhibition at White Columns in New York, where it was organized in collaboration with Galerie Susanne Zander / Delmes & Zander, Cologne. The show is built around the discovery, a few years back, of a briefcase full of mementoes gathered during the course of an 18-month affair between a German boss and his secretary. The whole archive—mostly photos of the woman and typed, almost clinical, records of the sex the couple they had— is a fine and cautionary reminder of the state of gender relations at the time: the overall impression is of a man who feels that he owns the woman he is sleeping with, because he has taken control of her body. (He even gets ahold of, and catalogues, the empty packaging from her birth-control pills.) Somehow, the ultimate symbol of the man's control is the absurd bouffant hairdo that the woman wears in almost all of the photos, regardless of how little else she has on. It feels to me like a giant handicap that her culture has foisted on her— a notably stylish ball-and-chain. (Photo courtesy White Columns, New York)

MARTINA KUBELK in APERTURE

"Martina Kubelk's self-documentation (...) is valuable as a poignant example of how photography can be used to perform alternate identities - or, in this case, perhaps, affirm the photographer - subject's true self."

Aperture No218, Spring 2015, p.136.

Margret: Chronicle of an Affair – May 1969 to December 1970 at White Columns

 

Günter K.s "Margret", untitled, Vintage Print,1970/11/04,10,5x 7,5, Courtesy Galerie Susanne Zander / Delmes & Zander

Organized in collaboration with Galerie Susanne Zander / Delmes & Zander, Cologne.
White Columns is proud to present in collaboration with Galerie Susanne Zander / Delmes & Zander, Cologne + Berlin, the American debut of "Margret: Chronicle of an Affair – May 1969 to December 1970", an extraordinary collection of found materials relating to a private affair conducted between a German businessman and his secretary in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

"Margret" chronicles a secret love story, which took place from May 1969 to December 1970 between the Cologne businessman Günter K., 39, and his secretary Margret S., 24. The exhibition – and a subsequent publication - consists of the photographs, documents and objects that were found three decades later in a briefcase abandoned in a German apartment. The archive consists of hundreds of color and black-and-white photographs showing the same woman (Margret S.) in various places and poses: sitting at a typewriter at the office, traveling, or in hotel rooms, undressing, changing, or getting dressed. In the archive, inscribed with dates, are samples of Margret's hair (from both her head and pubic region), her fingernails, and empty contraception packages, as well as a blood-stained napkin. Receipts from hotels and restaurants, as well as travel documents and tickets from theaters, reveal insights into the places the couple visited as well as acknowledging their preferences and interests. Personal notes and diary entries, mostly written with a typewriter, resemble official records. The focus of virtually all these writings is the sexual act, its frequency, its endurance, etc. - all factually underlined yet at the same time described in a coarse and often obscene language. In its conceptual denseness - resulting partly from the obsessiveness of the documentation - the collection seems to reverberate with the practices of artists such as Sophie Calle, where the viewer often finds themselves in a conflicted space, exposed to their own voyeurism.

In his introduction to the original presentation of ‘Margret’ in Innsbruck curator Veit Loers observed:
  “In September 1970, the diary entries set in, with precise descriptions of what happens during foreplay and then of the sexual act itself, but also mentioning all kinds of things happening besides. All this is meticulously typed, in red and black ink, as by a bookkeeper of his own obsession. The couple go on "business trips" in Günter's Opel Kapitän, stay at spa hotels and visit the casino in Wiesbaden. Then the trysts begin to take place in an attic flat in Günter's store building. Nobody is supposed to know, but people must notice something. Margret prepares roulades and redfish filets with cucumber salad. They drink Cappy (orange juice) with a green shot (Escorial, strong liquor) and watch "colourful television." Margret dresses for him in the clothes he has bought her. He, the perfect lover, in truth is a macho man who wants to have everything under control. She enjoys his attention, his generosity, is happy to let herself be manipulated, is jealous, becomes pregnant despite the pills, and has an illegal abortion − for the third time in her young life. Just before Christmas 1970 the reports and photographs break off. The relationship appears to be at an end. Margret is scared. She tells him that "after Christmas the fucking will be over and you will not dance at two weddings anymore." He gets involved with other women. These are no love stories, though, just obsessive sexual romps, chronicled nonetheless in hundreds of grotesque documents testifying to the stuffy German milieu in the early years of the Kohl era.”      


The book ‘Margret: Chronik einer Affare – Mai 1969 bis Dezember 1970’ was published in German in 2012 on the occasion of exhibitions of this material at the Kunstraum, and the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.  The book is now out-of-print. The White Columns’ presentation of ‘Margret’ is the first presentation of the materials in a non-German speaking context. A selection of the translated texts are available at the gallery.

‘Marget’ is presented in parallel to the exhibition ‘System and Vision’ organized by Delmes & Zander at David Zwirner, New York. February 28 – April 18.

Delmes & Zander Berlin presents: John Kayser "SITTING – Part II"

 

9 x 13 cm. Courtesy Galerie Susanne Zander / Delmes & Zander, Cologne + Berlin

John Kayser: SITTING – Part II

20. March – 25. April 2015

Opening: Friday, 20.03., 6 – 9 pm 

Delmes & Zander I Berlin picks up on John K. - SITTING, the first solo show by the artist at Galerie Susanne Zander I Cologne, with a new look into this fascinating body of work. Formerly known to us only by an abbreviation of his last name, recent ongoing research into this oeuvre has disclosed new facts :

John K.'s real name is John Kayser, born in 1922 in North Dakota. His family moved to Pasadena, California, sometime around the early 1930s, where Kayser grew up. As a young man he took classes at the Stickney Memorial Art School, which had opened in 1912 and was among the first major art schools opened in the Los Angeles area. Later he served in the military from 1943 to 1945 as a private in the 18th Bomber Squadron, 34th Bomber Group, which flew air offenses in Europe during World War II. His military occupational specialty was Airplane Armorer 911, which corresponds to his job: John Kayser worked for Northrup Aircraft Incorporated for 40 years, starting in 1941 on the assembly line and moving on to working as a technical illustrator at the company in the 1960s. From 1948 to 1954 he studied at the Art Center of Los Angeles and, in 1952, at the Allied Art School in Glendale, California. A few snapshots from the late 1940s suggest that he may have been married to a woman named Lilly, but she does not appear in any photographs nor is she mentioned in any letters or documents beyond those dates. Other than the women who modeled regularly in this photographs, and with whom he seems to have had close but never sexual relations, John appears to have been single up to his death in 2007.

Throughout his military service and working years at Northrup, he actively made portrait paintings and pastels, entering and winning awards in many community art shows and fairs in the Los Angeles area. The earliest photographs date from the early 1960s and appear at first to be an extension of his figure drawing practice, but while his drawings and paintings never really evolved beyond the art club aesthetic of the time, from the start he was able to create a distinct visual language in his photographs and in the 8mm films he made alongside. While rooted in the foundations of his art school training, in the photographs we see John giving voice to sexual obsessions alongside a kind of visual declaration of how he saw female beauty. Beyond a few dozen black and white photographs of his earliest model, all the original prints are Kodacolor snapshots from 35mm film that was likely processed and printed by John's neighborhood camera shop.

In this second show we will be featuring a selection of original vintage photographs by John Kayser from a period dating from the mid-1970s when he was in his 50s. They let the viewer catch a glimpse into Kayser's private world, where subtle details lend insight into the life and practice of a man obsessed with the beauty of the female form and the loss of beauty, and whose oeuvre we have only just begun to unravel. 

John Kayser 
"SITTING- Part II"
20. March- 25. April 2015
Delmes & Zander I Berlin
Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 37
D-10178 Berlin
Tel. 0049-30-24333144
Fax.0049-30-24333141

 

 

Emmanuel van Stein schreibt über die aktuelle Ausstellung der Galerie Susanne Zander I in Köln im aktuellen Kölner Stadt- Anzeiger

AGATHA WOJCIECHOWSKY  "Warum ich meine Hände nicht ruhig halten kann"
(Why I can't keep my hands still)
20.02. - 11.04.2015

Dienstag- Freitag 12- 18 Uhr
Samstag 11- 16 Uhr 
Galerie Susanne Zander I Cologne
Antwerpener Str. 1
D-50672 Cologne

Agatha Wojchiechowsky, untitled ,pen and ink drawing

33,6 x 30,2 cm. Courtesy Galerie Susanne Zander / Delmes & Zander, Cologne + Berlin

Susanne Zander in : "Anonyme Fotos erobern die Kunstwelt- Private Welten von Claudia Dichter"

Günter K.s "Margret", untitled, Vintage Print, 1970/10/251,10,5x 7,5 cm, Courtesy Galerie Susanne Zander / Delmes & Zander

Ein Koffer voller Bilder: Dokumente und hunderte Fotos, die ein Mann von seiner Sekretärin Margret gemacht hat. Vor 40 Jahren hatten die beiden eine Affäre. Immer häufiger finden private Fotos den Weg in den Kunstmarkt und in anerkannte Museen.

Günter K.s "Margret", untitled, Vintage Print, 1970/10/25, 10,5 x 7,5 cm, Courtesy Galerie Susanne Zander / Delmes & Zander

 
Hatte es die Fotografie lange schwer als Kunst anerkannt zu werden, so explodiert heute der Markt an Fotos und Fotobüchern. Und ein Phänomen taucht in letzter Zeit verstärkt auf: der Siegeszug anonymen Materials, wie dem von "Margret". Manchmal sind es Künstler, die anonyme Fotografien aus Archiven oder Flohmärkten in ihr eigenes Werk einspeisen und daraus etwas Neues entstehen lassen. Oder es sind Galeristen oder Fotointeressierte, die solche eigentlich nur für den Privatgebrauch gedachten Bilder, veröffentlichen. Dabei stellt das anonyme Material spannende Fragen an die etablierte Fotokunst: Wie wichtig ist Autorenschaft? Woran macht man die Qualität eines fotografischen Werks fest? Wie bemisst man den Wert von Dingen, die aus einem privaten Kontext stammen? Scala untersucht den Boom der gefundenen Bilder.

Klicken sie hier um zu dem Interview mit Susanne Zander zu gelangen.

Mingering Mike in the exhibition "Mingering Mike’s Supersonic Greatest Hits" at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

 

The Mingering Mike Show (Various Artists) Live from the Howard Theater, (Nations Capitol Records), 1969 mixed media and cardboard, 12 x 12 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mike Wilkins and Sheila Duignan and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment

In 2013, the Smithsonian American Art Museum acquired a collection of over 150 artworks made between 1969 and 1976 by a self–taught Washington, D.C. artist known only by his alter-ego, Mingering Mike.

The Mingering Mike collection comprises artworks constructed as part of the artist’s youthful fantasy of becoming a famous soul singer and songwriter, including LP albums made from painted cardboard, original album art, song lyrics and liner notes, self-recorded 45 rpm singles and more, all tracing the career of a would-be superstar.
The works powerfully evoke the black entertainers of the late 1960s and ’70s and are a window onto an historical moment when black radio was new and Washington-based performers like Marvin Gaye were gaining national attention and transforming American music. Mingering Mike was among the countless kids who dreamed of being discovered.
The lines between fantasy and reality are fluid in this body of work—Mingering Mike’s exuberantly illustrated record covers feature characters drawn from the artist’s own family and friends as well as “reviews” by real musicians such as Marvin Gaye and James Brown, and recordings of the artist’s original music are stamped with claims of having been made live in Washington hot spots such as the Howard Theatre.
The collection was lost to the artist in the early 2000s and discovered at a Washington flea market by “record digger” and criminal investigator Dori Hadar in 2004. Hadar posted pictures of the albums to an online record forum and the imaginary superstar quickly became a cult sensation. Hadar eventually located the artist, who still resides in Washington, and connected him with art dealer and curator George Hemphill, who arranged the first exhibitions of Mingering Mike’s work.
Untrained as either musician or visual artist, Mingering Mike nonetheless embodies a critical component of the American Dream, conquering tough circumstances by actualizing—to whatever extent possible—a world filled with fame, fortune, and happiness. This exhibition presents the vibrant creativity of this singular artist and powerfully conveys the larger American cultural phenomena that are so fully enmeshed in his words and images.
This installation will feature a wide array of objects from the collection, selected by Leslie Umberger, curator of folk and self-taught art.

 

American Art Museum (8th and F Streets, N.W.)
February 27, 2015 – August 2, 2015