Letter from Hans Werner Geerdts to J.P. Hodin

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[Transcription/translation]

17.1.1979

my dear joseph,

isn’t it funny how these problems, these questions, just keep coming up, from generation to generation! i’ve just put down your brühl’sche terrasse [brühl terrace] and i’m still moved by its relevance! certainly, the privations, the purely economic privations, are unfamiliar to me, but my student days in stuttgart weren’t so different: working at the brewery to earn some money, working here, there and everywhere just to survive! … and all that – quite miraculously! – having already survived the war… just thinking about it induces painful nausea in me… let’s say no more about it!

work here goes on: since last time i’ve written a short text about people as letters. i don’t know if i mentioned this covering-up of letters to you last year? now i’m planning to produce a cultural circular, offset printed, with millions of obscured letters… then also the enclosed text along with some other annotations, which might also accompany a folio of lithographs that i’m thinking of having printed in milan: nine prints in an edition of around fifty or seventy.

the cultural officer from the city of kiel was here for the festival with his wife – that’s when we selected the prints, and i was encouraged to do more… which i have.

then i made some improvements to your text – the biographical chronology – because it contained some errors and inaccuracies – none of them your fault – which have now been minimised as far as possible. if time allows, please let me know what you think. after all, it’s your text… right???

then i’ve written letters to the enclosed addresses, sending your regards and – after a long preamble – asking them to include my work in their plans. let’s hope something comes of it. there’s nothing i want more this year than for this work to see the light of day. i’ve also made many other things: ‘die bürokratie’ [bureaucracy]: sackcloths sewn together into a painting measuring 4.70 x 3.40 m. dense masses of people standing together like an army of bureaucrats… a large version of ‘rechnung mit unbekannten’ [reckoning with unknowns] on white primer on hessian, likewise the people standing as though in the advertisement…

also, it occurs to me that you should soon receive your copy of the catalogue from the city of kiel – or perhaps it’s arrived already? i’m actually very happy with the texts – just not with the abundance of images. fewer would have been better! well, there’s not much that can be done about that now ––– and since nothing’s for eternity, this pain too will pass. next time i shall pay more attention to these things… but one always says such things, and what will be, will be…

i’m thinking of going to the USA in august or september. would you be able to put me in touch with art galleries (or associations) beforehand????

i have your beautiful postcard before me again (an unseen kokoschka!). thanks for the greetings… perhaps we’ll see each other this year????

many kind regards to you and yours.

yours sincerely,

geerdts



COVERING LETTERS, that is: effacing writing, making reported events unhappen, questioning received knowledge, breaking with convention… that is, changing meaning.

Here, human figures stand in for letters, set out and composed according to the following principle: where one is, the other ends; aligned with the framework of a plan, bound to the conditions of a society; crowds of people, enlisted in an army of the nameless that would inspire fear and dread, standing in rank and file, as though defending dominant positions.

people who are our neighbours, our friends, our enemies, our parents, workers, officials, princes and paupers, blacks and whites, no more and no less.

this picture of the people replaces the appearance of letters on the page.

if a string of letters can have meaning, why should a row of people not have meaning?

obscuring letters gives meaning to the obscure.

let us make the most of that!

with the newspaper, with books, people enter into secluded domesticity, into the intimate sphere; the other is found here, outside the letters! an inexhaustible fount of reflection.

who is the ‘other’? are we, each one of us, not also the other? can it really be that positions vacant, obituary notices and the question ‘are you the man?’ have no bearing on us? Do we not all exist within the parameters of a definite programme? or are we the unknown quantity to be reckoned with?

marrakech, 15.1.1979



BIOGRAPHICAL CHRONOLOGY

1925
born in kiel on 23 january 1925, second son of gustav and berta geerdts, née fiedler.

1931–43
primary and secondary school in kiel, university entrance certificate.

1943–45
labour service, voluntary military service (navy), wounded as marine in tiegenhofen / west prussia, convalescence in hel and copenhagen, in kiel-friedrichsort at end of war.

1945
british captivity in fehmarn / holstein, released for agricultural labour, works for potatoes on the knoop estate, stage actor with schleswig-holstein regional theatre.

1946–49
studies at teacher training college in kiel.

1943–53
primary school teacher, handicraft examinations for teaching at middle schools.

1953
avoids the fate of becoming a lifelong civil servant by escaping to stuttgart to enrol with willi baumeister, whose works geerdts had seen on display at a bookshop in kiel (screenprints from the montaru series). these moved him deeply.

1953–56
studies under professor willi baumeister, who accepts him as a student on the basis of his early work; annotation of the ‘korrekturen’ [corrections], which were published as a pedagogical system; collaboration on revisions to ‘das unbekannte in der kunst’ [the unknown in art] by willi baumeister (stuttgart, curt e. schwab verlagsanstalt, 1947); meets various bauhaus artists and members of the werkbund from baumeister’s circle, including walter gropius; catalogues the collection of art theorist hans hildebrandt.
introduced to zen theory by baumeister.
first exhibitions at the kunsthalle, the university and neue heimat in kiel, municipal museum flensburg, schloss gottorp in schleswig, designs and builds educational exhibitions and trade fair booths, works on exhibitions in stuttgart, friedrichshafen, freudenstadt, schwaikheim. lettering for the milan triennial, director: [prof.] egon eiermann.
in 1956, inspired by baumeister’s gilgamesh illustrations, travels to babylon and ur in sumer, where he learns of the death of his teacher. rather than returning to stuttgart, he remains in baghdad where he paints and draws, builds architectural models, designs houses and gardens, makes murals and exhibits at the german embassy.

1958
returns to europe, implements designs for the OEEC pavilion at brussels expo, travels to london and then to kiel, where his father dies.

1958–59
various slide lectures at further education colleges. works at the stähle und friedel printing press in stuttgart, where he learns all the printing processes.
exhibitions in bonn, frankfurt and munich.
meets with pablo picasso on the ceramics course in vallauris.

1959–61
travels to turkey, works on a wall painting for the deniçilik bakasi in izmir. meets rudolf billing in istanbul, booth designs for krupp and de mag at the german industry exhibition in tehran: wall painting, photomontage, collages, lettering.
travels through mesopotamia to baghdad and on to beirut in lebanon, teaches at goethe institute, designs and plans exhibitions for lebanese artists, own exhibitions.
discovers fourth-century archontic grave stele in khurbet kilkis, south of hebron (like the discovery of prehistoric rock engravings in morocco many years later). geerdts becomes estranged from society following incarceration due to a situation that was no fault of his own, withdraws from the world and settles on the little island of formentera in the balearics.

1961–63
formentera, buys a finca. lives alone, writes much: two novels, three radio plays. kept from painting by inner unrest.

1964
takes a teaching position at the goethe institute in casablanca, where he also organises and designs exhibitions. among others: hans tombrock, g. leopold, bele bachem, foto lazi, anton stankowski, the pictorial imagination of paul klee, jörg spiller, children’s drawings from germany, prints from the frankfurt art cabinet of hanna bekker vom rath, moroccan painters, and own exhibitions. publication of the essay: ‘bilder hängen – räume gestalten, anregungen zum aufbau von ausstellungen’ [hanging paintings – designing spaces: suggestions for exhibition building]. poster designs for cultural events at the goethe institute, texts for exhibition openings.
decides to settle in marrakech after visiting and meeting people on the jemaa el-fnaa. starts a series of works, mainly drawings, titled ‘variationen über das thema: menschenmenge – foule’ [variations on the theme of the crowd].

1965
travels to the USA. visits washington, new york, boston, san francisco, los angeles, new orleans.

1965–69
exhibitions: galerie riehentor, basel; 25th salon d’art marrakech; westwood art association, los angeles; galerie mamounia, marrakech; galerie ivan spence, ibiza; galerie springer, berlin; alonzo gallery, new york.

1969–70
first trip to japan. studies zen philosophy, practices zazen at the eihei-ji monastery. learns the sumi-e painting technique from musace sensei at the manpuku-ji monastery in nara. return journey by train from kyoto to marrakech via siberia.

from 1970
recurring exhibitions at own home: 51 derb el hammam, mouassine, marrakech, morocco.

1971
second trip to japan. meets sculptor shogo shimada. exhibitions at iteza gallery, kyoto, and eki gallery, nagoya. visits japanese temples. return journey by sea and air via australia, hong kong, taiwan, bangkok, bombay. exhibitions at gallery c. brambach, basel (first work acquired by marc tobbey) and at les lettres et les arts, menton.
collaborations with local potters in marrakech.

1973–74
first trip to brazil, enabled by a collector, acting chief executive of a shipping company, to rio de janeiro, and to salvador in bahia. experiences on the island of itaparica form the content of a novel.
various publications in fikrun wa fann, wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, darmstadt, welt am sonntag, hamburg. various magazine articles: moroccan issue of the journal of the institute for foreign relations, stuttgart; moroccan issue of merian: ‘das organisierte chaos’ [organised chaos]. tv hessen and a. bockelmann start making a film about geerdts’s life and work.

1975
trip to rome and florence. lithographs with grafica UNO, milan. ceramics in siena. painting acquired by the vatican’s collezione d’arte religiosa moderna.
exhibition and catalogue at gallerita, milan, with texts by mario de micheli, jo verbrüggen and geerdts himself.
exhibitions in hallein, institutum canarium; galerie welz, salzburg; haus der kunst, munich.

1976
second trip to brazil. learns about the magical umbanda philosophy, which – like candomblé – goes back to traditions imported by african slaves. umbanda: ‘one and all’. geerdts associates this with the teachings of japanese zen philosophy. titles of paintings: ‘was ohne anfang und ende’ [something without beginning or end] and ‘die umwelt bin ich’ [i am the environment] etc.
the ‘variationen über das thema: menschenmenge’ appear as a catalogue, published in the USA by édouard roditi.

1977
sahara expedition to the hoggar mountains. produces a series of drawings and kasbah paintings. exhibition at the national gallery, rabat.

1978
exhibitions in bonn, wanne, kiel, gelsenkirchen, hagen and geverlsberg, organised by commerzbank.
publication of colour catalogue with texts by u. gertz, e. weiss and an essay by j.p. hodin.
paints ‘bilder aus der provinz’ [paintings from the provinces] after a trip to germany: crowds of people ordered and placed, standing in rank and file. text in a cultural circular: letters as people.

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