Generation 68. Ein Roadmovie

2008 is a year full of potential for cultural entrepreneurs active in the field of collective remembrance. Seen from a European perspective it is the emblematic years of 1848, 1948 and 1968 which immediately present ample material for recollections both personal and official. German public TV channel 3Sat recently contributed to the discourse by broadcasting the film Generation 68. Ein Roadmovie, directed by Frank Diederichs (6 April 2008, 20:15). Diederichs portrays the life of writers and journalists, actors and directors, all people who had been politically and culturally active already back then or who were to be left with a lasting impression by the events of that ominous year. One of these is a participant of Overcoming Dictatorships, Lutz Rathenow.

Rathenow tells his personal experiences behind the specific German political background and the generally stirred-up atmosphere of the late 1960s. His recallings of a family holiday in Hungary can be taken as a literary description of the social and personal repercussions of contemporary German-German relations. Rathenow says:

In 1968, at the end of July and beginning of August I spent my vacation together with my parents and my sister at the Balaton Lake. For people from the GDR the atmosphere in Hungary felt much more western and generally relaxed: broadcasting stations had superior programmes, you could witness policemen consuming alcohol and Coca Cola was on offer. For people with western currencies it was even rather a fair deal. It was therefore a happy coincidence when my parents made the acquaintance of a couple from West Germany. On the beach they paid for beverages and we received small gifts. My parents accepted these well-meant complaisances gratefully. Me personally I didn’t think at all of being grateful, although I also benefited from the situation. These people from West Germany were not really arrogant; I did want to conceive them as arrogant.

As contingent as the course of life of an individual may be it is most likely that these experiences influenced Rathenow's personal development which subsequently advanced his literary and dissident activities. Check out more information by Jutta Vinzent on Rathenows artistic collaboration with photographer and project participant Harald Hauswald.

Antagonism and Amalgamation.
Inside Ulf Göpfert's Studio
(Gert Röhrborn, Dresden)

(Left: Ulf Göpfert playing on a self-made “Klavizimbel“ in his studio; photograph G.R.)

Ulf Göpfert is a man of clarity. Metaphorically speaking, the professor of architecture who used to be his father placed him in a cradle of Bauhaus school. Göpfert did not just learn and perfect his craftsmanship of furniture restoration; he has appropriated its very essence. His artistic convictions are guidelines valid for shaping his social environment as well.

Göpfert abides by the traditional creed that art is to be derived from proficiency. He is out for the challenge to amalgamate the clarity and linearity of human constructive form with the flux of organic nature. Niki de Saint Phalle has had considerable influence on him. Giving his instincts for play and research full scope, he is excited about the responsibility to determine and use the right moment for the completion of a work of art. Leaving hollow aestheticism behind, it is this decision from which he finally derives the yardstick used to judge success or failure of his entreprise. He is a vehement critic of the contemporary trend towards mindless eclecticism in art and society, as well as egomaniacal ignorance of valid standards and evidence of historical lifeworld. Göpfert is certainly not an iconoclast. He aims at fathering integrated artworks in which art and architecture form “a new object of higher quality“. Mere applications are a nuisance to him. He has further developed these thoughts in a recent tract .

His creative genius has not only been applied to his domicile, an old farmhouse refurbished over the past decades in the greenish outskirts of Dresden. Göpfert’s paintings only rarely tour through galleries; he prefers to place his in-depth-compositions permanently in public space. Whoever approaches this openhearted man will instantly realize: Ulf Göpfert tries to sustain a humane social environment in which exchange and competition instead of command and compliance function as guiding principles. To speak true at the right time is not enough. It is the fertile soil that needs to be tilled if humane and creative deeds may flourish and be reaped in the future.

By taking over political responsibility in the years following the collapse of the Communist regime Göpfert was able to leave his imprints on the Dresden cultural scene. Facing the destructive drive of zeitgeist, he has defended some endangered cultural actors and created space for newcomers. Since bailing out of politics more than 10 years ago he has dedicated his attention entirely to painting. He has not put his critical mind to a rest, though. Sneering at the absurdities of Dresden politics is a temptation he cannot resist forever. He provokes replies, and not in vain: they form an integral part of his art which is not a self-sufficient enterprise at all.

Project information:
Ulf Göpfert contributes „Individuality versus Dictatorship“ to the exhibition.

Visit his webpage http://www.goepfert-art.de/.