Art and Exhibition Hall - Exhibitions - Jürgen Klauke

Jürgen Klauke From the day-to-day drawings, 1973-74 12 heliogravures based on photographic studies for sequences "Veilings" and "Physiognomies" each approx. 32 x 40 cm Heliogravures, printed in small quantities on an etching press, fascinate by their silken blacks and shadings providing the subtlest of transitions to the light sections, and by their expressive tonal gradations. They are known to us not only from the early high-grade printing processes used for art reproductions in book-printing and artistic photography after 1900, but primarily from the photographs printed by heliogravure and appearing in the legendary periodical "Camera Work", edited and published by the celebrated American photographer Alfred Stieglitz between 1903 and 1917. Stieglitz helped in this way to secure recognition not only for photography but also for heliogravure as an independent artistic medium. Heliogravure (Gk. helios = sun), sometimes called photogravure (Gk. photos = light), less frequently chemogravure, is a manual intaglio printing process developed in the 19th century by the Scottish researcher Mungo Ponton and the Czech painter Karel Klic. In a process like that used for aquatint etchings, the required printing plate is produced by using a copper plate, treated with a "hot-top" coating of ultra-fine asphalt dust, in the format of the printing sheet. These related techniques differ from each other, however, in the way the image is transferred to the printing plate: in aquatinting, this is done by manual and mechanical means, using the instruments of graphic arts; in heliogravure, the process is photo-chemical. The printing plate is etched in an iron chloride bath and the image appears in intaglio. In the printing process the intaglio takes the ink and transfers it to the printing paper, producing the finished picture. In heliogravure, the image to be reproduced is always a photograph, usually a high-contrast black and white negative of the best technical quality. From this is made a half-tone diapositive. The diapositive is printed by exposure onto light-sensitive pigment paper, i.e. gelatine-coated paper dyed with a fine red-brown pigment. The exposed pigment paper is immersed for a few minutes in cold water. As soon as the paper begins to get soft and pliant, it is squeezed, gelatine-side down, onto the aquatint plate. The plate is then immersed in warm water, dissolving not only the paper but also all the unexposed parts of the gelatine coating, which are washed off by gentle whirling. What is now left on the aquatint plate is a delicate relief of exposed and chromatized gelatine. During the ensuing etching process, the surface of the copper plate is worked to conform to the varying thickness of this relief coating, for the purpose of taking the printing dye in a later stage, so that the printed heliogravure possesses the fine gradations of the light-dark tonal shading. Owing to this fineness, the prerequisite for larger pressings - of approximately ten or more prints - is steel-plating. The fine-grain surface of the plate would not survive the wear incurred by printing a greater number of sheets. The selection of 12 heliogravures by Jürgen Klauke on display in the Studiolo are based on motifs of early photographic studies, such as "Verschleierungen" ("Veilings") or "Physiognomies" from 1972-1975 (see also the gum-bichromate prints in this room), which are related to the "day-by-day drawings". They attest to Klauke's interest in artistic processes in the interaction between graphics and photography, by which familiar motifs acquire a totally new quality of expression. The aquatint graphics displayed here as a bound artist's book in one of the Studiolo's vitrins are based on the "Tageszeichnungen" ("Day-to-day Drawings") of 1973-74, a 40-page book containing tusche drawings on paper. A related work is the artist's diary "Ich und Ich" - day to day drawings and photographs ("I and I - Things, Situations, Surroundings, Oct. 70 - Feb. 71"), which was published in 1972 with drawings and Polaroids. The aquatints display anew a rich fund of ideas and personal experiences as a starting point for artistic explorations into the connection between word/writing and image/photograph, as they later come to fruition in the creative relationship of work-title and photographic study, as for example "Das menschliche Antlitz im Spiegel soziologisch-nervöser Prozesse" ("The human countenance mirrored by sociological-nervous processes") of 1976.

`Studiolo: an explanation`		`Photographs of Work`
`Studiolo in the exhibition hall Photo: S. Seifert`		12 "work in progress" photographs 12 photographs showing Jürgen Klauke and his associates engaged in the "Disastrous Self" work complex (1996-2000) which is on display in the atrium / ground floor area of the exhibition For some 20 years Jürgen Klauke's photographic cycles have been staged in professional photo studios and, except for persons and props, contain no further references to the "exterior world". A neutral and evenly lighted background, often suggesting an intentional artificiality, heightens the effect of Entfremdung or distancing from reality. Single photos such as those in the "Disastrous Self" work complex have recently undergone a further degree of abstraction by means of tinting. In the process of staging the "formalization of boredom" Klauke began using workbooks to pre-plan the increasingly complex dramaturgy of his photo-tableaux, not omitting to make spontaneous changes in the studio as they seemed necessary. Whereas earlier works were photographed with a self-timer, Klauke soon began to avail himself of the facilities and options of large photo studios so as to be able to concentrate his attention wholly on the elements of staging and presentation. Test shots orientated on the groupings of figures and objects in the workbooks are followed by implementation in the photo studio. The working photos displayed here document the development of pictorial compositions for the "Disastrous Self" work complex: Jürgen Klauke as self-presenting subject has meanwhile been joined by professional models cast for the parts, who interact with objects that frequently have been specially created for the photo sessions. "I use the camera - the machine - to transport my thoughts. There are enough photographs as it is - chiefly superfluous ones - so that in my case you can speak of counter-photos, photos set against a flood of reproductions passing themselves off as reality." For the conceptual photo-artist Jürgen Klauke, photography is an autonomous medium -albeit in practice not the sole medium - for making artistic statements. In addition he employs such various forms of expression as videos, drawings or performance. The central point, however, is the use of photography that does not copy reality but rather serves the direct visual rendering of ideas. Klauke's vistas of the imagination are not communicated by means of single pictures; they are experienceable only in a complex tableau or an extended pictorial sequence. There emerge counter-images set against the pictorial glut and overstimulation of our media-controlled society.

		Jürgen Klauke Physiognomies, 1974 Signed: J. Klauke Performance 1974 3 works from a 20-part series Gum-bichromate prints with relief printing impressions each 78 x 105 cm Gum printing is a high-grade photographic printing process developed in the mid-19th century. It is hard to practise but very creative to use. A sheet of paper, the image-bearing surface, is treated with a photosensitive coating of chromium compounds, which are dissolved in gum arabic (a water-soluble exudate of various North African acacias). This coating is exposed to light (as in photo-developing) and the exposed sections become hardened by a tanning effect. These coated parts become the printing medium for transferring the ink to a sheet of paper, which becomes the image-bearing surface. Since the medium of the sensitized printing paper can be exposed and "developed" several times, various tonal gradations can be printed in succession, up to the point of producing a kind of multicolour print. The finished photograph with its soft tones can produce the effect of a watercolour or a pastel sketch, or of tempera painting. The adaptability of the image-bearing surface - which for example can range from watercolour paper, wrapping paper, and patterned wallpaper to thick handmade paper - offers further creative options, as the three works by Klauke illustrate. The large-format gum bichromate prints on display here in the Studiolo are based on the pictorial motifs of the "Physiognomies" photo-sequences of 1972-1974.

		Jürgen Klauke From the day-to-day drawings, 1973-74 12 heliogravures based on photographic studies for sequences "Veilings" and "Physiognomies" each approx. 32 x 40 cm Heliogravures, printed in small quantities on an etching press, fascinate by their silken blacks and shadings providing the subtlest of transitions to the light sections, and by their expressive tonal gradations. They are known to us not only from the early high-grade printing processes used for art reproductions in book-printing and artistic photography after 1900, but primarily from the photographs printed by heliogravure and appearing in the legendary periodical "Camera Work", edited and published by the celebrated American photographer Alfred Stieglitz between 1903 and 1917. Stieglitz helped in this way to secure recognition not only for photography but also for heliogravure as an independent artistic medium. Heliogravure (Gk. helios = sun), sometimes called photogravure (Gk. photos = light), less frequently chemogravure, is a manual intaglio printing process developed in the 19th century by the Scottish researcher Mungo Ponton and the Czech painter Karel Klic. In a process like that used for aquatint etchings, the required printing plate is produced by using a copper plate, treated with a "hot-top" coating of ultra-fine asphalt dust, in the format of the printing sheet. These related techniques differ from each other, however, in the way the image is transferred to the printing plate: in aquatinting, this is done by manual and mechanical means, using the instruments of graphic arts; in heliogravure, the process is photo-chemical. The printing plate is etched in an iron chloride bath and the image appears in intaglio. In the printing process the intaglio takes the ink and transfers it to the printing paper, producing the finished picture. In heliogravure, the image to be reproduced is always a photograph, usually a high-contrast black and white negative of the best technical quality. From this is made a half-tone diapositive. The diapositive is printed by exposure onto light-sensitive pigment paper, i.e. gelatine-coated paper dyed with a fine red-brown pigment. The exposed pigment paper is immersed for a few minutes in cold water. As soon as the paper begins to get soft and pliant, it is squeezed, gelatine-side down, onto the aquatint plate. The plate is then immersed in warm water, dissolving not only the paper but also all the unexposed parts of the gelatine coating, which are washed off by gentle whirling. What is now left on the aquatint plate is a delicate relief of exposed and chromatized gelatine. During the ensuing etching process, the surface of the copper plate is worked to conform to the varying thickness of this relief coating, for the purpose of taking the printing dye in a later stage, so that the printed heliogravure possesses the fine gradations of the light-dark tonal shading. Owing to this fineness, the prerequisite for larger pressings - of approximately ten or more prints - is steel-plating. The fine-grain surface of the plate would not survive the wear incurred by printing a greater number of sheets. The selection of 12 heliogravures by Jürgen Klauke on display in the Studiolo are based on motifs of early photographic studies, such as "Verschleierungen" ("Veilings") or "Physiognomies" from 1972-1975 (see also the gum-bichromate prints in this room), which are related to the "day-by-day drawings". They attest to Klauke's interest in artistic processes in the interaction between graphics and photography, by which familiar motifs acquire a totally new quality of expression. The aquatint graphics displayed here as a bound artist's book in one of the Studiolo's vitrins are based on the "Tageszeichnungen" ("Day-to-day Drawings") of 1973-74, a 40-page book containing tusche drawings on paper. A related work is the artist's diary "Ich und Ich" - day to day drawings and photographs ("I and I - Things, Situations, Surroundings, Oct. 70 - Feb. 71"), which was published in 1972 with drawings and Polaroids. The aquatints display anew a rich fund of ideas and personal experiences as a starting point for artistic explorations into the connection between word/writing and image/photograph, as they later come to fruition in the creative relationship of work-title and photographic study, as for example "Das menschliche Antlitz im Spiegel soziologisch-nervöser Prozesse" ("The human countenance mirrored by sociological-nervous processes") of 1976.