Heinz Günter Mebusch (1952–2001) was a German

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in other ...

and experimental artist born in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second- ...

Biography

Mebusch studied

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...

and visual communication with

Otto Steinert Otto Steinert (12 July 1915 – 3 March 1978) was a German photographer. Life and work Born in Saarbrücken, Germany, Steinert was a medical doctor by profession and was self-taught in photography. After World War II, he initially worked for ...

and Erich vom Endt. He lived and worked in about forty countries in Europe, Africa and America. Mebusch spoke fluent English, Spanish, French and was familiar with

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

. He was also a lecturer at the Folkwang-School in Essen and organized and curated art and photo-projects, including the Beuys Festival in 1991 in Düsseldorf.

His works

Mebusch's estate maintains archives of his film negatives, published vintage prints and manuscripts on photography, art and philosophy. His estate is administrated by the charitable European

Artforum Culture Foundation The Artforum Culture Foundation (ACF) is a private and independent nonprofit organization with headquarters in Thessaloniki, Greece, which promotes contemporary art and cultural exchange. The organisation also has offices in Athens, Cologne, Pari ...

(ACF).

Exhibitions

Mebusch exhibited in Costa Rica, Luxembourg, Austria, Germany and USA and represented Germany at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

in 1999.

Artist portraits

His ongoing project of over two decades was ''Face to Face'', portraits of modern and contemporary artists. More than 200 artists-portraits were realized from 1979-2000. A few working and vintage prints were made still before his early death. In a few cases these photo-prints have additional signatures and over-paintings by the respective artist.Reise zum Planeten Ars bei Auktionsportal lot-tissimo, 10/2004
/ref> A

portfolio Portfolio may refer to: Objects * Portfolio (briefcase), a type of briefcase Collections * Portfolio (finance), a collection of assets held by an institution or a private individual * Artist's portfolio, a sample of an artist's work or a c ...

of all his portraits was prepared by Mebusch and a limited number of these portraits were prepared by as large-format prints. The final edition, based on Mebusch's specifications, will be realized under the title ''Face to Face – Planet of the Artists'', by ArtForum Editions, through the

. Black and white portraits and colour prints were made of

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...

James Lee Byars James Lee Byars (April 10, 1932, Detroit, Michigan – May 23, 1997, Cairo, Egypt) was an American conceptual artist and performance artist specializing in installations and sculptures, as well as a self-considered mystic. He was best known for h ...

, Ford Beckmann, Fernando Botero, Herman de Vries, Felix Droese,

Erró Erró (born Guðmundur Guðmundsson in 1932 in Ólafsvík, Iceland) is a visual artist and painter, who is best known for his painted pop art collages of images from comic books and advertisements.

Keith Haring Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...

, Dennis Hopper,

Jörg Immendorff Jörg Immendorff (14 June 1945 – 28 May 2007) was a German painter, sculptor, stage designer and art professor. He was a member of the art movement ''Neue Wilde''. Early life and education Immendorff was born in Bleckede, Lower Saxony, n ...

Martin Kippenberger Martin Kippenberger (25 February 1953 – 7 March 1997) was a German artist known for his extremely prolific output in a wide range of styles and media, superfiction as well as his provocative, jocular and hard-drinking public persona. Kippenb ...

Meret Oppenheim In Egyptian mythology, Meret (also spelled Mert) was a goddess who was strongly associated with rejoicing, such as singing and dancing. In myth Meret was a token wife occasionally given to Hapy, the god of the Nile. Her name being a reference ...

, A.R. Penck,

Gerhard Richter Gerhard Richter (; born 9 February 1932) is a German visual artist. Richter has produced abstract as well as photorealistic paintings, and also photographs and glass pieces. He is widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary Germa ...

Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, Urban area, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material q ...

Yannis Tsarouchis Yannis Tsarouchis ( el, Γιάννης Τσαρούχης; 13 January 1910 – 20 July 1989) was a Greek modernist painter and set designer who achieved international fame, and was "known in particular for his homoerotic subjects," including so ...

and

Wolf Vostell Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are c ...

. This project is in context with the projects of the same title by

Vera Isler-Leiner Vera may refer to: Names *Vera (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) *Vera (given name), a given name (including a list of people and fictional characters with the name) **Vera (), archbishop of the archdiocese of Tarrag ...

, who had met Mebusch in Kassel in 1996.

External links

Artforum Culture Foundation Website

* ttps://www.documenta-archiv.de/de/aktuell/termine/1367/3-reise-zum-planeten-ars-kuenstlerportraits-von-heinz-guenter-mebusch Documenta Archiv
Kurzbiografie

Obituary I memento

Winter Stiftung

References

* Heinz Günter Mebusch, ''vu au passage'', 1979 * Heinz Günter Mebusch, Reise zum Planeten Ars, Wien 1985 * Heinz Günter Mebusch, Was ist Kunst?, Wien 1985 * Mebusch/Jansen/Beuys, in: Joseph Beuys: ''Denken! Denken an Joseph Beuys'', Meerbusch-Ilverich 1986 * Mebusch, Beiträge in: ''Refigured Painting. The German image 1960 - 1988'', Katalog S. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1988, 1989 * Heinz Günter Mebusch, Face to Face, Basel 1994 * Isler, Vera I Mebusch, Heinz-Günter I Moore, John CB, ''Modern Photo Portraits'', ed. O.Y. Safiriou, Thessaloniki I Cologne 1998 * ''Was war los am Beuys Geburtstag 1991? 70 Stunden Dauerfeuer! JB s GB''. Düsseldorfer Beuys-Festspiele. ( Joseph Beuys zum 70. Geburtstag). Hg. Heinz-Günter Mebusch und Tom A. Hawk, Düsseldorf 2001 * ''Meret Oppenheim'', Katalog, Berlin, Wien 2014. Zusätzlich Cover der Werbekampagne Wien und Berlin. * ''FAMOUS, Reflections on the work of the conceptual artist and photographer'', Peter Merten und K.J. Safiriou (Hg.) Thessaloniki, Athen 2016 * ''FAMOUS'', Peter Merten und K.J. Safiriou (Hg.) Thessaloniki, Athen 2016 * ''Geglaubte Wahrheiten.'' Beitrag zur Philosophie der Fotografie. Betrachtungen zum Werk des Konzeptkünstlers und Fotografen Heinz Günter Mebusch, 2 Bde., bearbeitet und neu hrsg. 2020, ArtForum Editions. * Fantastic Woman, catalogue Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt I Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, p. 66, reference p. 417 * Heinz-Günter Mebusch, ''Unveröffentlichte Schriften'', The Mebusch Archive I Artforum Culture Foundation {{DEFAULTSORT:Mebusch, Heinz Gunter 1952 births 2001 deaths Photographers from North Rhine-Westphalia Artists from Düsseldorf