What happens when the German artist Gerhard Richter and the

jailed journalist turned terrorist Ulrike Meinhof are placed in the same room?



Richter/Meinhof-Opera has its origins in the controversial painting series October 18, 1977 by Gerhard Richter.

The paintings depict scenes surrounding the apparent suicides of jailed members of the notorious Baader/Meinhof

Gang responsible for a deadly campaign to overthrow the West German establishment. Derived from archival

newspaper photographs, the paintings caused a sensation when first exhibited in Germany in 1989. Richter’s

technique rendered the images ambiguous, his intentions obscure.


Drawing on the writings of both Richter and Meinhof and records of actual events, this intimate performance

artwork is set to a series of compelling soundscapes by David Chesworth.


Richter/Meinhof-Opera entangles art with politics, the real with the ritualised and the personal with the State.

    







David Chesworth, Richter/Meinhof-Opera, 2 performers, 2 musicians, 5 channel audio, 2 channel video
Photo of performers Kate Kendall and Hugo Race: Sonia Leber




Responses

'A cultivated, erudite and disorienting journey' The Age

Kylie Northover, 'Terrorist Art', The Age, 13 October, 2010

Fiona Gruber, 'Terrorists on the Opera Stage', The Australian, 14 October, 2010

Cameron Woodhead, 'An erudite, disorienting interrogation of art's process', The Age, 19 October, 2010

Click here (pdf file, 983kb) to download the Program


  

The silencing of Ulrike Meinhof
The German painter Gerhard Richter and terrorist Ulrike Meinhof never met in real life. Richter says he was painting clouds at the time of Meinhof’s arrest for terrorism.  Instead, Richter’s encounter with Meinhof is through her death. Ulrike Meinhof had been a strong voice against the authoritarian tactics of the West German State, through her articles in left-wing magazine Konkret and TV appearances on discussion panels.

However, the Meinhof that Richter paints had long been silenced. She was kept in solitary isolation for eight months in the ‘dead section’ of Ossendorf prison in an attempt to break her. When she eventually joined other jailed members of the Red Army Faction at Stammheim prison, she was further silenced by the others in the group, especially Gudrun Ensslin, who rewrote many of her writings in jail. Meinhof’s later arguments against the fairness of the Gang's trial were also ignored. Finally, Ulrike Meinhof was literally silenced by her suicide in prison in 1976. 

'If they say I have committed suicide, be sure it was murder'
Ulrike to her sister Wienke, in the spring of 1976

It is Ulrike's exhausted body that we see in Gerhard Richter's painting series October 18,1977 named after the date on which three of the Baader/Meinhof Gang were discovered dead in their cells at Stammheim prison. Richter takes a police photograph of Ulrike's dead body and paints three versions of it. They could almost be pictures of her sleeping except that we see her throat has been ripped by the chord of the torn towel that took her life. Richter paints what might be considered a death mask adding a final silencing of Ulrike Meinhof.


     

Unfinished business
Ulrike Meinhof was driven by ideals, intellectual passions and a strong ethical drive. In the late 1960's student led anti-capitalist and anti-war protests were occurring in many major industrialised nations. In West Germany, various Left Wing movements had formed in reaction to the many injustices and inconsistencies of the West German authorities. With the rehabilitation of Germany following WW2, many former Nazis had returned to positions of power in West German industry, law and politics. The government had aligned itself with American global interests including support for the Vietnam War and a strong anti-communist stance. 

There was a huge backlash from the younger West German generation against their government’s imperialistic stance, with widespread protests on the street. The subsequent police clamp-down on these left wing protests was invasive and brutal. The police were secretly assisted by the right wing Springer Press whose newspapers took a belligerent hard line against the left. The younger generation who had not experienced the Second World War felt they were still under the tight control of a fascist State.

The children of the Nazi generation were embracing an emerging Western counter-culture which expressed an opposition to the old socio-political norms. Driven by popular songs, independent films and literature, and mixed with a relaxed attitude to sex, drugs and alcohol, they gained a new found attitude against the establishment. Ulrike Meinhof emerged as one of the more articulate voices for this generation and gained wide public recognition in the press and on television for her arguments against West German state authorities and Western imperialism.
   
However Meinhof became increasingly disillusioned with working as a journalist from within the system, and its failure to bring about change. Suddenly - remarkably -  and to the shock of many, she opted out of the system and joined Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and others forming an urban guerrilla group popularly known as the Baader/Meinhof Gang (officially known as the Red Army Faction) to press her ideology home through direct action. Meinhof abandoned her career, her children and her comfortable middle class lifestyle in order to achieve ideologically-driven change.

‘Protest is when I say this does not please me. Resistance is when I ensure what does not please me occurs no more.’ Ulrike Meinhof quoting Fred Hampton, a Black Panther leader

The Baader/Meinhof Gang became responsible for a string of kidnappings, bombings and, finally murder, making them number one enemies of the West German state. While many on the Left rejected violence as a means to achieve their goals, they also rejected the heavy-handed crack down by state authority. Members of the Baader/Meinhof group received widespread public support, including from people who are today key figures in the German establishment. Over thirty years after their deaths in prison the Baader/Meinhof story still resonates.

Ulrike Meinhof’s death occurred a year before the deaths of Baader, Ensslin and Raspe. In both cases there was a mass outpouring of grief from supporters of their cause. Thousands of students came to Meinhof’s funeral. During their time in prison, the gang had become huge icons for the younger West German generation.

Meinhof image © Erika Sulzer-Kleinemeier
 

Uncle Rudi and Auntie Ulrike
While Gerhard Richter generates a work with deep resonances, he professes to take no direct interest in the politics of his subject matter. Richter states that he is a non-believer in ideologies:

‘I have committed myself to thinking and acting without ideology of any kind...I serve no idea.' Gerhard Richter

He characteristically has little to say about his reasons for creating this work although he refers to Germany's struggle to come to terms with the period as 'unfinished business'. There is an earlier painting by Richter of his uncle Rudi who served in the German Army in WW2. Many German families had a Nazi relative who served in the war. Uncle Rudi’s faded portrait suggests a bluring of past admiration with shame. It is also a memento to a failed ideology. Should we read the October 18, 1977 series as similarly ambiguous?

For some, Richter's paintings are open to the charge of hagiography, honouring the memory of terrorists. Many see the actions of the Baader/Meinhof Gang as an unforgivable assault on civilized society. For others, the paintings are a kind of memento mori, reminding us all of our own mortality and failed ideologies. Meinhof has for many become a mythologised figure evoking a range of sentiments including admiration for her courage and sympathy for her personal failure and sacrifice. Richter's paintings may well have aided this process, as Richter/Meinhof-Opera may also do.
       
< Click to view larger image


About Richter/Meinhof-Opera
Richter/Meinhof-Opera is a minimal, and at times almost mute, performance artwork that presents a selection of separate moments held in suspension.

The actions and texts in the performance are derived from records of actual events and writings of German painter Gerhard Richter and terrorist Ulrike Meinhof, who never met in real life. In the performance, two settings are combined within the same space. Ulrike Meinhof is in the 'dead section' of Ossendorf jail. She has been placed in isolation in an attempt to break her will. Gerhard Richter is in his studio attempting to paint his Baader/Meinhof series, October 18, 1977 .

I have been drawn towards some of the incidental events and ancillary pieces of information lurking within the complex subject matter. We listen to the LP record that was found was on the record player in Andreas Baader's cell. The record player was allegedly used to conceal the gun he used to commit suicide, and was subsequently painted by Richter in the series. Elsewhere we hear Meinhof's impassioned calls to contact the new inmate and fellow Baader/Meinhof Gang member Astrid Proll as she took her weekly bath. Ulrike's calls form a kind of a proto-aria which is deliberately drowned out as guards turn on noisy vacuum cleaners. Throughout the work, soundscapes provide a kind of aural beiwerk, providing additional aural accessories to the portrayed events.

This work embodies a return of Ulrike Meinhof's voice. However it is mediated in various ways. Meinhof sings 'How Low Would You Not Stoop' taken from Bertolt Brecht's modernist Lehrstücke (learning-play) entitled 'Die Massnahme' (The Measures Taken), a fragment of which she quotes in her prison letter to Gudrun Ensslin. We also hear 'Song of the RAF' which is Meinhof's own rewrite of Brecht's 'Praise of the Party'.

I recently came across Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev's catalogue essay for the 2008 Biennale of Sydney. Entitled 'Revolutions–Forms That Turn', her thoughts suggest one perspective that could be applied to this work: that Richter/Meinhof-Opera might be an attempt to create a space that acknowledges the gap between direct and sometimes violent action of real-world politics and 'the autonomy and isolation of the art object, spinning on its own and detached from daily life'.

Artist Statement, David Chesworth, July 2010
With additional comments from Tony MacGregor and Sonia Leber

This performance artwork stems from an earlier project to create a large opera for the stage. With a working title 15 scenes/15 songs it aimed 'to explore terrorism and its mythology, the representation of violence, and the ways in which a work of art might speak to us of all these things'. The idea for the work came from librettist Tony MacGregor as a response to Gerhard Richter’s paintings. Tony and I wished to build on the success of our earlier collaboration Cosmonaut, a media opera that was premiered at the Melbourne International Arts Festival in 2004.

Contemporary opera has so much potential, but is a tricky beast too. We had to resolve how the tough subject matter could cut through the seductive, melodramatic nature of the operatic form. The scope and scale of the opera seemed to be always getting broader and heavier, and yet there was always a desire to reduce it down to its essential elements.

In 2006 we received support from the Victorian Arts Centre’s Full Tilt program which allowed Tony and myself to collaborate with director Bagryana Popov and producer Jennifer Barry. The collaborative team also included the performers, Dan Witton, Melissa Madden-Gray, Ruth Schoenheimer and Majid Shokor and the designer Paula Levis who all made contributions to the creative development process. Further assistance came from Arts Victoria and the Australia Council. The realisation of the work was then put on hold as we searched for opportunities to stage the work.

After the project had lapsed for over 18 months, I decided to put some time aside to try and write a small side-piece that would take some of the subject matter in a different direction. I had already created a series of soundscape ideas for the original project and I used several of these aural cues, along with Tony's original libretto, as a springboard to create the new work.

Special thanks to Tony MacGregor, and also Bagryana Popov and Jennifer Barry for supporting this performance knowing that some of the ideas we collectively researched have permeated Richter/Meinhof-Opera.

Stephan Aust, 'Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F.'

Robert Storr, 'Gerhard Richter October 18, 1977'

Gerhard Richter, 'The Daily Practice of Painting'

Karin Bauer, 'Everybody Talks About the Weather...We Don't: The Writings of Ulrike Meinhof'

Robert Storr, 'Gerhard Richter: Doubt and Belief In Painting'

Bertolt Brecht, ''The Measures Taken and Other Lehrstücke'

Astrid Proll, 'Baader Meinhof: Pictures on the Run 67-77' (photo book)


The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975), directed by Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta

The Baader/Meinhof Complex (2008), directed by Uli Edel

Germany in Autumn (1978), with segments directed Heinrich Böll, Hans Peter Cloos, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Alexander Kluge,

Maxmiliane Mainka, Edgar Reitz, Katja Rupé, Volker Schlöndorff, Peter Schubert and Bernhard Sinkel



Credits

David Chesworth ....... .......... .... ......................... . A .....
Richter/Meinhof-Opera .. ................................................................................................
After a libretto by Tony MacGregor

2 performers, 2 musicians, 5 channel audio, 2 channel video
World Premiere presented by Melbourne International Arts Festival, Wax Sound Media and Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne 14–16 October 2010

Performers Kate Kendall and Hugo Race
Musicians Andrea Keeble and Caerwen Martin
Direction, Music and Sound Design David Chesworth
Text by David Chesworth from the writings of
Gerhard Richter, Ulrike Meinhof and Bertolt Brecht
Lighting Designer Travis Hodgson
Lighting Assistant Laura Harris
Costume Designer Anna Cordingley
Costume Maker Amanda Carr
Video Camera and Editing Bruce Permezel
Staging Coordinator Amy Turton
Staging Assistant Sean McMorrow

Produced by Wax Sound Media
Project Curator Sonia Leber

Richter/Meinhof-Opera is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria. We acknowledge the support of NGV for location filming at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. Thanks also to the Jack London label for its support. Special thanks to our colleagues Tony MacGregor, Bagryana Popov, Jennifer Barry and Maryanne Lynch. We acknowledge the support of Brett Sheehy and Simon Maidment at Melbourne International
Arts Festival and Juliana Engberg and Jane Rhodes at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.
Top banner images: AAP/AP and David Ramage. All images are property of their respective copyright holders