Martin Kippenberger

Martin Kippenberger
Art, music, life

This is the writing of someone who – after Kippenberger’s death – wondered why everyone called him a painter. A big name, a tall man (around 6’ 1’’) but – a painter? In the early 1980’s he might have mounted and painted canvases around the house, but they weren’t necessarily by his own hand. It was the time of many lost perspectives.

Some even though that – with the world about to end any day – the might/could/should just as well try their hand at anything and become instant unskilled all-round geniuses.

So, the question remains if Kippenberger was also a musician.

In 1978 a west Berlin punk disfigured the face of Martin Kippenberger. At the time, the artist was leasing the Kreutzer punk venue S.O.36, the local of Ratten-Jenny (rat Jenny), the undisputed perpetrator of the attack. … … … He had just taken over S.O.36, my Kreuzberg local. This was in 1978. And the he tried to throw me out, for no reason whatsoever. There I was, holding a beer, a big jar with a handle. Anyway, the moment he saw me, Kippenberger started shouting: we don’t want her in here and stuff like that. He pushed me and I fell flat on my face just before we had reached the door. Still clutching my full glass. It broke and sliced up my right palm. I was bleeding like crazy. I stood still holding the handle end remaining glass in my bleeding hand.

And then I pressed and shoved the remaining glass into his face. Like that. After this unpleasant encounter with Ratten-Jenny, Martin Kippenberger asked a nameless painter-for-hire to create a portrait of his disinfected, sutured and bandaged face – the work of an emergency doctor. He called it Dialog mit der Jugend (dialogue with the youth).

We always knew that Martin was destined to be an artist. There was a painted statement in our kitchen wall: “Martin, our artist”

Martin was a special case. He simply couldn’t’ do anything else.

Martin’s school years were a complete disaster. Martin’s educational failings had a certain bourgeois charm. Martin’s works were always about the present. He pinpointed the moment like no other. Martin was a punk, in a way. Although he didn’t look like a punk, his lifestyle was punk. He absolutely loved to dance. His dance style was very very arty.

So, it made sense to invite artists like Bernd Zimmer, Rainer Fetting or Helmut Middendorf to S.O.36. Middendorf, by the way, was of the few artists Martin has always appreciated.

In my eyes, Martin was always an anti-grant artist. He poured his own money into hi –invariably short lived projects. S.O. 36, which he ran with artist Achim Schächtele, only stayed under his wings for six months. But when you talk about it today, it almost feel like you’re discussing six years. That’s how much content and focus he managed to squeeze into this period.

Kippenberger always needed to be the center of attention, no matter where he was at the time.

He was very driven, always looking ahead. Throughout his entire life. It was his goal, to become a great, famous artist.

Martin jumped on every possible stage, told jokes end got drunk in public – he wasn’t going to let anybody control him. Due to his feel for people –including their weaknesses – he could easily hit them where it hurts, which is something he did with pleasure.

I think Martin had despised many of the people who now claim to have been his best friends and supporters. Naturally, this applies to institutions and their representatives. Offending a museum director, gallery owner or curator might also get you an exhibition. He was always a master of skillful insults.

Kippenberger picked means of expression from all disciplines and handled them with verve and confidence. Without a hint of hesitation, he would also let his lesser works stand – something other artists could never do.

Martin Kippenberger exhibited a restlessness to rival his own inflationary notion of art. In a sense, artists are faced with only two options: to produce as much or as little as possible. And Kippenberger was among those who always produce way too much – while he wanted to subvert the mechanism of art, he also might have suspected he didn’t have a lot of time left.

He also flirted with the potential of failure. From today’s perspective, it might appear as if Martin only needed to have an idea – and it would become an instant success. But it wasn’t like that. There was always the potential of failure.

Martin was never interested in fame for the sake of fame. During one of our conversations, he asked me what was going on in New York, whose success curve was up and whose was going down. He insisted in the difference between the terms “superstar” and “shooting star"!

Something I always appreciated about Marti was his open and friendly manner toward us Americans; he wasn’t arrogant at all. It was definitely impressive how little Martin Kippenberger cares about what others thought of him. Well, it probably wasn’t quite that simple! Let’s say: he let the people around him believe that he wasn’t interested in others opinions.

At some point I heard that Martin had expanded his sphere of action to an island near Athens were he had founded his own museum.

MOMAS was an ingenious work. Adding a fictitious space to the art world’s map and ensuring his place in literature was one of Martin Kippenberger greatest achievements. Just to remind you: Syros is nothing but a rock in the sea.

The first ever entrance to this global subway network, "Metro Net”, was inaugurated in Syros in 1982. As you might know, this was followed by further entrances in Dawson City, Leipzig, Venice and Kassel.

The saying goes: when someone dies young, they become a myth. To me, this is only one possible explanation for Martin’s current success and all those major international retrospectives almost ten years after his dead. Many people didn’t even “see” the art: they only saw him, the agent provocateur. And more often than not, they misunderstood his intentions. It takes large, encompassing exhibitions to give the public an idea of Martin Kippenberger sheer breath of work. It really surprised me how long it took for the art world to recognize how vital Martin’s art really is.

Martin Kippenberger lived his live two or three times faster than the rest of us. Maybe this was the cause of his early death. Hardly anyone could keep up his pace.