Siegfried Gohr: Begegnungen

A mosaic of colourful, differently sized stones

Siegfried Gohr looks back on 50 years full of encounters in the art world, in which he worked as a museum director (1978-1985 Kunsthalle Köln, then Museum Ludwig Köln until 1991) as well as a professor of art history and media history in Karlsruhe (1993-2004) and art history in Düsseldorf (2006-2014). The major survey exhibition "Bilderstreit" (The Picture Controversy) in the Cologne exhibition halls in 1989, which he curated together with Johannes Gachnang, has become legendary. In our volume, he guides the reader anecdotally through his areas of interest - beginning with an account of a seminar trip to the USA as a young art student with a visit to Quappi Beckmann, followed by his stays in Paris, where he was captivated by the international scene of museums, dealers and collectors - an interest that also brought him into contact with the major collector Peter Ludwig until the 1990s. His memories of his meetings with artists and his frequent friendships with them occupy a prominent place: He devotes individual chapters to Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Anthony Cragg, Günther Förg, Renato Guttuso, Antonius Höckelmann, Jörg Immendorff, Konrad Klapheck, Per Kirkeby, Markus Lüpertz, A. R. Penck and Sigmar Polke. His diverse connections have placed him in the front rank of post-war art publicists; his publications include countless catalogue contributions, monographs on Pablo Picasso, René Magritte and Markus Lüpertz as well as the editorship of the catalogues raisonnés of Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Max Beckmann and Jörg Immendorff. Siegfried Gohr's preface states: "These memories concern a vanished world that was still characterised by optimism and zest for action in the Rhineland. At that time, people felt they were at the centre of a cultural change, which found visible expression not least in the new museum buildings. When there was talk of a new 'confusion' in the 1980s, few people could have guessed that this situation would continue to grow to this day." The new, it could be concluded, only has a solid foundation if it is based on historical knowledge, i.e. stands on the shoulders of the old, so to speak.

With individual chapters on: Quappi Beckmann, Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Anthony Cragg, Günther Förg, Johannes Gachnang, Renato Guttuso, Wolfgang Hahn, Antonius Höckelmann, Jörg Immendorff, Fred Jahn, Knud W. Jensen, Konrad Klapheck, Per Kirkeby, Peter and Irene Ludwig, Markus Lüpertz, Elisabeth Nay-Scheibler, A. R. Penck, Sigmar Polke, Wolfgang Rihm, Isabelle Rouault, Johannes Wasmuth