Klaus Rinke | PROJECTS

On the occasion of Gallery Weekend 2022, the haubrok foundation and Kicken Berlin will be showing extensive work groups of Klaus Rinke (b. 1939), spanning from the 1960s to the 1980s, in a two-part exhibition project. Rinke counts among the most important contemporary artists internationally. As a pioneer of performance and action art, his works explored the relationship between body in space and time. Trained at the Folkwangschule in Essen from 1957-1960 and then a professor of sculpture in Dusseldorf from 1974 until 2004, Rinke feels at home in a variety of disciplines and embodies like few others an expanded definition of the artist. He is drawer, painter, photographer, sculptor, action, and concept artist at once.

The haubrok foundation’s exhibition of the series Wasserwerk Rinke focuses on early performative works and is accompanied by the exhibition Sequenzen. Konzeptuelle Fotographie by Angelika Platen, which shows Rinke’s environment in the 1970s. Entitled Klaus Rinke | Projects (MoMA 1973 et al.), Kicken Berlin will present a series of iconic “primary demonstrations,” which largely originated from his first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1973.

The selection of works at Kicken Berlin is based on an early, central overview of Rinke’s work, curated by Kynaston McShine (1935-2018), curator at the Modern Museum of Art, New York, together with the artist as part of the institution’s Projects series in the fall of 1973. McShine had an eye for the experimental, conceptual art of the era by early minimalists such as Carl Andre and Donald Judd (Primary Structures, Jewish Museum, New York, 1966), Robert Smithson and Richard Serra (Information, MoMA, 1970). Rinke praises McShine as a pathbreaking facilitator of art and has dedicated the current exhibition at Kicken Berlin to him. Searching for an immediate, true-to-reality mode of perception and representation, Rinke put himself at the center of his actions, precisely planning his body’s movements in time and space — Primary Demonstrations — which were captured in serial photographs. They make up the quintessence of his performative oeuvre and the focus of the exhibition at Kicken Berlin in Charlottenburg. We can differentiate between two approaches on view in the MoMA presentation. In one, Rinke intensified the strictly documentary-conceptual pointing gesture that reinforces elementary experiences in the simplest of actions, such as the nine-part Zeigebenennung I. Auge, Augen, Nase, Mund, Ohr, Ohren, Stirn, Kinn, Hals (Naming by Pointing I. Eye, Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Ear, Ears, Forehead, Chin, Neck, 1971) and Plus + Minus (1972-73). Also part of this group are Wand, Boden, Raum (Wall, Floor, Space, 1970), Sehen. Vier Augenblicke (Looking. Four Moments, 1971), and Abgewandtes Stehen, Zugewandtes Stehen (Standing Reversed, Standing Towards, 1971). In a different approach he more strongly utilized photography’s serial qualities to visualize and clarify. The 169-part work Durchs Format gehen (Passing Through the Format, 1972) belongs to this group. Sich ins Bild Stellen (To Place Oneself into the Picture, 1972) visualizes a process in a similar way. Deplatzierung. Zeitpunktueller Standortwechsel (Displacement. Changing Location to Points in Time), made in Kassel for documenta 5 (1972), visualizes a sequence of growing distance.

In biographical-theoretical texts, Klaus Rinke describes his lifelong affinity to water as the first essential element and medium to represent time, space, mass, and gravity in accordance with the motto “Water + Gravity = Harmony.” He works with swimming elements [Schwimmelementen], pools, and containers such as the accessible Wassersack (Water Sack, 1968) and the installation Waagerechter Wasserstrahl (Horizontal Water Jet, 1968). These were followed by water circulations and pour-and-fill actions. Zwölf Fass geschöpftes Rheinwasser (Twelve barrels of water scooped from the Rhine, 1969) is one of his most well-known works of this kind. The water works take up many forms, from sculptural actions [skulpturale Handlungen] to factual objects such as barrels, sacks, and tubes to photography. They are the focus of the presentation Wasserwerk Rinke at the haubrok foundation in the FAHRBEREITSCHAFT in Berlin-Lichtenberg, basing its title on the eponymous show at the Wiener Secession in 1980. Other works programmatically take up the circulation and redirection of water, for example Wassertisch I, Zeitdurchfluß (Water Table I, Flow of Time, 1970/1975). Eaumage - le fouet culturel (Eaumage - The Cultural Whip, 1984) manifests the foundational element with a room-encompassing dynamic. Zwei Meter Wasser (Two Meters of Water, 1969), planned in multiples, lends the otherwise formless volume a visible presence in the shape of a coiled tube. Klaus Rinke was also a subject to photographers, among them Angelika Platen. With her camera she captured the actions and positions of Rinke and his cohorts in the young concept- and action-art scene — including Daniel Buren, Hanne Darboven, Walter de Maria, Charlotte Moorman, and Sigmar Polke — with her own conceptual and serial approach. A selection of these works is on view alongside Rinke’s at FAHRBEREITSCHAFT.

On the occasion of Gallery Weekend, and on the artist’s birthday which coincides with the vernissage at Kicken Berlin, these parallel presentations at haubrok foundation and Kicken Berlin offer a concentrated overview of the central series of Rinke’s performative works.