Dag Erik Elgin
– The Obituary Phenomenon Ernst Beyeler

Diary Excerpts 1984-2010:

February 22nd 1984
Visiting Gotham Book Mart, located in the Diamond District in New York, I acquire a copy of The Non-Objective World, the first English edition of Kazimir Malewich’s Die Gegenstandslose Welt, published by Paul Theobald and Company, Chicago, in 1959. Back at the hotel, I find a card, obviously used as a bookmark, inserted on page 69. The card reads:

October 14th 1988
Upon entering the building of the Düsseldorf Art Academy in Eiskellerstrasse, my attention is directed towards a card, lying on the floor in front of me, with the title “Die Kinderzeichnung in der Kunst” - ”Children’s Drawing in Art.” As I am picking it up, I register a punctuation mark in each corner of the card, as if it previously had been attached to something.
To my astonishment it is an invitation to a lecture in 1970. The card is stamped on the rear with a registration form, originally used for registration of students works acquired by the Academy. The layout of the registration form is partially altered and filled in by hand, referring to a certain:

Fenster m. einem Loch in der
Scheibe. Aus dem Jos. Beuys
Atelier Raum 002
STAATL. KUNSTAKADEMIE DÜSSELDORF
(Hole in the window of Joseph Beuys’ Studio, Room 002 Düsseldorf Art Academy.)

The card is signed and stamped, October 13th 1988
December 11th 2004
Travelling to Basel to meet with Rémy Zaugg; he picks me up at the airport in his Renault. On our way to Mulhouse on the French side we cross the Swiss border. On the route we pass French, German and Italian street signs. I register the differences in the layout of the signs, not solely the different fonts, but their variation in size and colour; in short the different character of the signs - their expression. Is it solely a matter of difference in language that creates the character of ”German” or ”French”? Or is it somehow connected to pure formal considerations? Obviously language defines a mood, a territory. We are speaking German…
…The following day I am guided through his project for the pharmaceutical company Roche in the centre of Basel. It consists of a defined colour scheme and the application of texts on the facade, with doors leading to several administrative and laboratory functions. On our way we pass the Beyeler Foundation. Rémy is tired and we part in a café, and I assure him I will be ok the rest of the day on my own. It turned out to be the last time I saw him. After he had left, I pick up a postcard on the table next to ours; Kandinsky, Improvisation No 10 in the Beyeler Foundation…

September 2009
Since early summer I have been working on a series of small scale paintings based on museum information signs. Probably, as a consequence of painting’s total loss of its privileged position, the idea of gaining perfection through rehearsing scales, i.e. the copy, has fallen into disrepute. The series address the impossibility, the denial of the possibility of losing oneself in an unknown material, and the subsequent longing – in a physical sense - to take in, to be overwhelmed by pre-existing images. Appropriation, characteristic of modernism and contemporary art, represents the antipode, belongs to another economy, and comes close to what Guy Debord fittingly characterised as the sun that never sets over the passivity of modernism. The new paintings address a certain longing for the technical and time-consuming activity of painting, while simultaneously acknowledging the impossibility of the same.
(Added later: An element in the project at The Institute of Social Hypocrisy might illustrate what is at stake here; a replica of the white flag of the Institute with a frottage of the bullet-hole in the window, the re –enactment of Joseph Beuys’ hole in the window in Düsseldorf Art Academy)…
…(Added later: How close did Ernst Beyeler get to Improvisation No 10? In a video interview with Beyerler, the layman’s direct access to art is addressed, represented by a certain unknown housewife. But who was Kandinsky, she asked. Ernst Beyeler acquired the work under questionable circumstances from the Nazi art dealer Ferdinand Möller in 1951. It was his first major acquisition – a purchase that proved controversial, as the painting had been confiscated in 1937 by the Nazis. Later he built a museum to house it (and his additional collection), describing it as possibly the first abstract painting – do you hear, Kazimir? Did his endeavours pay off - did he get closer to his icon? Was Mr. Beyeler, because of his involvement with this work, better prepared for the 24th of February 2010? The housewife representing the ideal of the pure and immediate recognition of artistic quality; Beyeler and the housewife, analysis and connoisseurship versus revelation, the idea of immediate, unmediated access to art.

Autumn 2009
Finally, quite different aspects relevant to the presentation of La Collection Moderne should be considered. In Berlin, Ernst Beyeler entered the stage again, and the presentation of three museum registrations of Wassily Kandinsky’s painting Improvisation No 10 stirred up events reminiscent of Strindberg´s Inferno, with its descriptions of the author’s movements in Paris, including alchymistic experiments, the search for supernatural signs in everyday objects and occurrences; a possible precursor to Friedrich Jürgenson, Konstantin Raudive and EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena).

November 2009
In connection with my exhibition Dysfunctional Male Parent in Paris, I am introduced to Victor Boullet and his two-year project The Institute of Social Hypocrisy (ISH). The title of the paintings refers to Dave Hickey’s description of the modernist artwork as an impossible father figure. The principle of a black ground with reflecting lines has been expanded upon to include various textual elements. The texts relate to perception and visuality (with Georges Didi-Huberman as an important reference). The idea to introduce text as a visual element was confirmed by reading Malewich and his description of ”Architext”; he considered the black square a consequence of overlapping texts, printed on top of each other, resulting in a monochrome, black surface; the black square. The white edge mirrors the margins of a printed page, rather than an ordinary frame. This information, totally absent in the traditional sublime reception of modernism, is vital: it is of great importance whether an abstraction is based upon rejecting a figure or unconditionally incorporating the same: a total overload of texts versus the ascetic hygiene comprising the reception of e.g. Ad Reinhard under Clement Greenberg’s sublime horizon…
…I consider the choice of typeface as an expression of political and ideological preferences. (On January 3rd, 1941, the so-called Bormann-Erlass was issued, banning the use of Fraktur as a typeface in Nazi-Germany. Ironically, Alfred Bormann, Hitler´s private secretary, issued this decree on a document carrying the official letterhead of the German National Socialist Party (NSDAP) – designed in Fraktur. From now on (1941), Antiqua was officially declared to be the correct type font, while Fraktur was characterized as Schwabacher Judenlettern (Schwabach Jewish-letters).

February 4th 2010
La Collection Moderne opens in Berlin. In this exhibition, one painting is represented in three versions: the registration of Kandinsky’s Improvisation No 10 in Hannover (typeface: Bauhaus) Niederschönhausen (typeface: Antiqua) and Basel (typeface: Bodoni):

Leihgabe Slg. Küppers, 1927
Ankauf von Frau S. Lissitzky-Küppers Moskau, 1930
(Irrtümlich eingetragen / war nur Leihgabe)

Hannover Provinzial-Museum

…Parallel to my exhibition, La Collection Moderne, the gallery presents Nick Laessing’s and Athanasios Argianas’ We All Turn This Way in the adjoining project-room - ”studio pick # 1”. They present an object (previously shown at the Serpentine Gallery in London) reminiscent of a harp, incorporating a radio-receiver tuned to the so-called Jürgenson frequency (1485.0 kHz), named after the Latvian-born opera-singer, painter and archaeologist Friedrich Jürgenson (1903-1987). The piece refers to EVP, electronic voice phenomena. Jürgenson was convinced that he could communicate with the dead via a radio receiver and a tape recorder, tuning in on the wavelength of the dead on this particular kHz-frequency.

February 24th 2010
The prominent art collector Ernst Beyeler dies at the age of 88 years.

February 24th 2010
In an e-mail from Valeria Schulte-Fischerdick, director of the Galerie Opdahl in Berlin, I am informed that the art critic Thea Herold has just been to my exhibition, and will write a review to be published in Berlin’s newspaper der Tagesspiegel coming Saturday.

February 26th 2010
I receive several e-mails with the correspondence between Valeria and Ms. Herold. They all express concern as to whether or not the review of La Collection Moderne will be published this Saturday. One of the e-mails informs that the Saturday edition of der Tagesspiegel has been reworked because of the extensive obituary of Ernst Beyeler. ”And exactly Beyeler!”, Valeria responds in an e-mail, “look at the provenance of the Kandinsky – you have to admit it is rather uncanny.”

February 27th 2010
As predicted, the extensive obituary of Ernst Beyeler is published in der Tagesspiegel - consequently, there is no room for other articles, including Thea Herold’s review of La Collection Moderne.

March 6th 2010
Herold’s favourable review is published in a shorter version.

June 12th 2010
Sitting next to me at a dinner party is a lady who worked with Ernst Beyeler for a period of three years. It turns out they became acquainted when she was working as an art consultant, in the 1980s, for a Norwegian investor in New York. Beyeler was in contact with her because of his interest in Edvard Munch. From now on, it seems impossible not to address this phenomenon in one way or another. As mentioned earlier, it increasingly reminds me of August Strindberg’s Inferno, where secret messages and codes are transmitted in the most unexpected manner. In my case, with connections reaching back to my student years in Düsseldorf; via my visit to Rémy Zaugg in Basel - without visiting Fondation Beyeler, yet being reminded of the existence of the same from the postcard I found in the café; my investigation into the issues of provenance and the political implications of various fonts and typefaces; Ernst Beyeler’s intervention through death, coinciding with the display of the EVP object, in the project space next to my exhibition, with the radio transmitter tuned to the so-called Jürgenson frequency. By now, it has become impossible to join even a peaceful dinner party without Ernst Beyeler crossing my path. I know that I am totally tuned in to the Jürgenson-frequency; communicating, not with the dead in plural, but with the dead one.