Diedrich Diederichsen (born August 15, 1957) is a German

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

, music

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and

cultural critic A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole. Cultural criticism has significant overlap with social and cultural theory. While such criticism is simply part of the self-consciousness of the culture, the social positions of ...

. He is an

intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or a ...

writer at the crossroads of

the arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

, and

pop culture Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * Pop (Gas al ...

. Diedrich Diederichsen was born and grew up in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

where he worked as a music journalist and editor of the German ''Sounds'' magazine in the heyday of

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

and new wave from 1979 to 1983. Until the 1990s he was then the editor-in-chief of the influential

subculture A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...

magazine '' Spex'' in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

. Diederichsen worked as visiting professor in

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

Offenbach am Main Offenbach am Main () is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Hesse, Germany, on the left bank of the river Main (river), Main. It borders Frankfurt and is part of the Frankfurt urban area and the larger Frankfurt Rhein-Main Regional Aut ...

Gießen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univers ...

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

, Cologne,

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

and Gainesville. After teaching at the Merz Academy in

for several years, he became Professor for Theory, Practice and Communication of Contemporary Art at the

Academy of Fine Arts Vienna The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (german: link=no, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien) is a public art school in Vienna, Austria. History The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was founded in 1692 as a private academy modelled on the Accademia di Sa ...

in 2006. Diedrich Diederichsen is a prolific writer whose articles and texts are printed in a variety of periodicals and publications. Newspapers and magazines with contributions by Diedrich Diederichsen include ''

Texte zur Kunst ''Texte zur Kunst'' is a German contemporary art magazine. History ''Texte zur Kunst'' was founded in 1990 in Cologne by art historian Stefan Germer and art critic Isabelle Graw. It has been published in Berlin since 2000. Since the death of ...

'', ''

Die Zeit ''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles. History The ...

'', ''

die tageszeitung ''Die Tageszeitung'' (, “The Daily Newspaper”), is counted as being one of modern Germany's most important newspapers and amongst the top seven. taz is stylized as ''die tageszeitung'' and commonly referred to as ''taz'', is a cooperative-own ...

'', ''

Der Tagesspiegel ''Der Tagesspiegel'' (meaning ''The Daily Mirror'') is a German daily newspaper. It has regional correspondent offices in Washington D.C. and Potsdam. It is the only major newspaper in the capital to have increased its circulation, now 148,000, s ...

'', ''

Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of SZ is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and social-democrat. History ...

'', ''Theater heute'', ''

Artscribe ''Artscribe'' (1976–92), titled ''Artscribe International'' from 1985, is a defunct British contemporary art magazine. It was notable for its commitment in the late 1970s and early 1980s to abstract art, and for giving popular art critic Mat ...

'', ''

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...

'', and ''

Frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

''. Diedrich Diederichsen's writing is influenced by

Post-structuralism Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critique ...

Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

Cultural studies Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...

New Journalism New Journalism is a style of news writing and journalism, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, that uses literary techniques unconventional at the time. It is characterized by a subjective perspective, a literary style reminiscent of long-form non ...

Beat literature The Beat Generation was a literary Subculture, subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced Culture of the United States, American culture and Politics of the United States, politics in the post-war era. T ...

Psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

, and

Situationism The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...

. A main topic of his writing is the tension between

subjectivity Subjectivity in a philosophical context has to do with a lack of objective reality. Subjectivity has been given various and ambiguous definitions by differing sources as it is not often the focal point of philosophical discourse.Bykova, Marina F ...

identity politics Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...

, and

culture industry The term culture industry (german: Kulturindustrie) was coined by the critical theorists Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), and was presented as critical vocabulary in the chapter "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment ...

Post-Fordist Post-Fordism is the dominant system of economic production, consumption, and associated socio-economic phenomena in most industrialized countries since the late 20th century. It is contrasted with Fordism, the system formulated in Henry Ford's aut ...

society. In his writings he frequently refers to personal experiences and the links between

zeitgeist In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a ''Zeitgeist'' () ("spirit of the age") is an invisible agent, force or Daemon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history. Now, the term is usually associated with Georg W. F. ...

, biography, and history.

Selected works

* ''Sexbeat'' (1985), republished 2002 * ''1500 Schallplatten. 1979–1989'' (1989), republished as ''2000 Schallplatten. 1979–1999'' (2000) * ''Freiheit macht arm. Das Leben nach Rock’n’Roll'' (1993) * ''Politische Korrekturen'' (1996) * ''Der lange Weg nach Mitte. Der Sound und die Stadt'' (1999) * ''Musikzimmer. Avantgarde und Alltag'' (2005) * ''Eigenblutdoping. Selbstverwertung, Künstlerromantik, Partizipation'' (2008) * ''Kritik des Auges. Texte zur Kunst'' (2008) * ''On (Surplus) Value in Art. Mehrwert und Kunst. Meerwarde En Kunst'' (2008) * ''The Sopranos'' (2012) * ''Über Pop-Musik'' (2014)

External links

* Diedrich Diederichsen'
homepage
at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna * Extensiv

Interview/podcast with Diedrich Diederichsen (2014)
about the role of criticism and creativity in contemporary art, the social dimension and signifying potential of today's music, and the links and differences between the art and music worlds. * “No Happy End. Narration and Linearity in Kippenberger”, lecture at the Museum of Contemporary Arts (MOCA) during the exhibition ''Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective'', Los Angeles 21 September 2008, webvideo
part 1part 2part 3part 4
{{DEFAULTSORT:Diederichsen, Diedrich 1957 births Living people Cultural critics German film critics German music critics German art critics German theatre critics Academic staff of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Journalists from Hamburg German male non-fiction writers