4.11 Conversation with Rolf Preisig

Berlin, 6 October 2004

[Preisig is commenting on a folder containing all the invitation cards from the Galerie Rolf Preisig, 1973–79] rolf preisig The Weiner exhibition was a tape, spoken by a woman in four languages. So there was nothing to see. The piece consisted of this invitation and the tape only. sophie richard David Tremlett… rp Then Robert Barry drawings. I designed the invitation card out of a list of words that now hangs on the wall in my toilet! Edda Renouf: I have no idea what she’s doing now. You don’t hear anything from her any more. sr Ian Wilson … rp This was during Art Basel 1976 … a little special exhibition with three works of Carl Andre, Donald Judd and Robert Ryman, all serial works: white paint on polyester with sticky bits, a long copper line on the floor and then a ‘stack’ by Judd. It was wonderful. sr At that Art Basel you also had a stand with Konrad Fischer. rp Yes, exactly. In 1978 I was there with Konrad again. We showed Richter’s first abstract pictures, those smear paintings, at prices of around 25,000 Francs. Seven or eight paintings, and we didn’t sell a single one. Now they go for millions, that’s life! sr Alan Charlton … rp At that show he presented four ‘4 part paintings’. … Leslie Foxcroft is Alan Charlton’s wife. She does very interesting things, all with paper … Daniel Buren, Hamish Fulton, Ulrich Rückriem … sr What was Buren’s project? rp This here was his second exhibition [shows photographs]. He covered parts of the windows with pink and white striped paper, and repeated the pattern on the inside gallery wall. The space was a former stable, about 10.5 × 6 metres, the ceiling 4 metres high. Good proportions, but without heating, and freezing cold in winter! sr In a courtyard? rp The building was U-shaped. First I could rent the left wing, years later also the opposite wing. I specially liked the ceiling: iron joists vaulted with bricks. For the opening show in this space, Buren extended the arches of the ceiling into intersecting circles to form a sort of garland. This ‘reflection’ of the ceiling was projected to the opposite wall, partly covering the windows. sr The gallery’s first exhibition with Stanley Brouwn, what was shown there? rp Simply a table with filing cabinets, and in the filing cabinets cards with pace measurements! It was a pretty chilly start of a gallery! But I absolutely wanted Brouwn, one of the really good guys, to set the standard. sr Richard Long, On Kawara, James Lee Byars … rp Byars’ show was The Hundred One Page Books, black books piled up on a black table. At the opening Byars, dressed in black and wearing a top hat, entered the room, picked up a book, whispered the one word or the sentence printed on the one page, set the book back down, until he’d gone through the hundred books, and walked out. Very magic and mysterious! sr Rémy Zaugg, Sol LeWitt … rp Geometric Figures, his second show after the Wall Drawing in 1975 … sr And Wilson did his ‘Discussion’ in the gallery? rp Yes. He was present and the people came or did not come! There were never many participants, and they were completely baffled. Two years ago, Ian was invited by Urs Raussmüller for a ‘Discussion’ in Schaffhausen, and he was just the same as 30 years ago – incredible. sr Lawrence Weiner … rp A work of Lawrence Weiner presented within the context of an installation and a book . So there was also this publication, beside the piece itself that was carved into the gallery wall [shows photograph]. sr So it wasn’t stuck on to it. rp Not at all, it was hammered in by an art student. And the wall was to be freshly plastered after the show! sr Here’s an artist I didn’t know. rp That’s Vaclav Pozarek, a very interesting character, originally from Prague, now living in Bern. sr … Are those books? rp No, those are wooden slabs. On the concrete floor of the gallery he placed them in circles. In the other gallery space with a parquet floor, he put granite stones one on another in a contra-rotating circle. sr So that was on the other side of the courtyard? rp Exactly, in the right wing of the building. I had it restored, adding a little office. sr You were always on Rheinfelderstrasse? rp I moved there in January 1975, for the first year the gallery address was Wettsteinallee 6. I showed in two rooms on the ground floor of the house I lived in with my family … Pozarek, then Federico Winkler, a Basel artist, followed by Wolfgang Laib – with one of his first exhibitions, certainly his first in Switzerland … And to end it all, a double English final: Long and Fulton! sr Long’s invitation card is beautiful, with the Milestones. rp Thank you! Another announcement card I like very much is the one for 4 Graue Bilder by Richter 1975: photographic papers exposed by the artist himself, each one in a slightly different grey, and mounted on cardboard. So each announcement became an original Richter! I don’t know how many people realised it! sr Let’s start at the beginning. How did the gallery come to be opened? rp I’ll first have to tell you about my life. I was quite interested in art, but started working as a copywriter in the Swiss advertising agency ggk . In October 1967 I moved from Basel to Düsseldorf, where ggk just opened a branch office. At exactly the same time, Konrad Fischer started his gallery there with Carl Andre. When I first saw this space with those steel slabs on the floor, I was completely thrilled! Only a few weeks later I met my future wife Barbara, a former gallery assistant at Schmela. By then she was collecting a bit and I was collecting a bit. We made friends with Konrad and Dorothee Fischer, they had two children practically at the same time as we did. 1973, after six years in advertising the idea of returning to Switzerland and starting a gallery came up – of course with a stock of Fischer artists we’d met and also bought works of. I wondered whether to go to Basel or to Zurich. As at that time the Basel Kunstmuseum was simply better –directed by the legendary Franz Meyer – and the Basel Kunsthalle was an interesting place too, I decided for Basel. sr Are you from Basel? rp I was born in Basel and grew up and went to school there. I’d actually always lived in Basel until I went to Düsseldorf in 1967. sr Did you have a deal with Fischer that allowed you to take on his artists? rp No, it was a thing between friends. I didn’t have to pay Konrad fees or anything. Of course, we were always interested in what the other one was doing. sr You were actually almost the only gallery in Switzerland to show those artists. There was also Bruno Bischofsberger, but he was more Art & Language and Kosuth. rp Bischofsberger in Zürich was a great dealer, of course, and he still is. To my horror he’d shown Alan Charlton before me in Switzerland, but he’d asked Fischer many years ago. Very strange to see Alan in the gallery of Warhol, Twombly and Basquiat! In Basel there was Galerie Stampa, which still exists. And in Zürich Annemarie Verna, working with Judd, Ryman or LeWitt, for example. As her space was smaller than mine, I could go for the big wall drawing 1975, when Sol decided for two simultaneous shows in Switzerland. But we also joined forces to publish the book Lines & Color, with additional help of Marilena Bonomo – 3,000 Swiss Francs for each, an almost incredible amount of money then! sr Did you go on working in advertising? rp No, I didn’t want to be a part-time dealer for fulltime artists. That was important for me. But I had to right at the end, because financially it was getting worse and worse. So I started freelance jobs again, but got into troubles soon: When there was an artist on visit or an exhibition to put up, there was also an urgent presentation to be written. An impossible situation! And as the gallery needed to be completely rebuilt, I was forced to close for at least a year and to move somewhere else. This and upcoming private problems made me decide: ‘Draw a line under it and go back to advertising!’ sr What was the situation for art collectors in Switzerland? Were there some people who were interested?

I also went to Düsseldorf a lot at that time, all happened there and in Cologne and Holland … I was most interested those days in what was called the ‘Fischer school’, but there was also a ‘Michael Werner school’. I can still hear Konrad say: ‘Oh, that Penck! Lüpertz, oh no!’ On the other hand, Werner was more or less ignoring Fischer’s artists. Only very few people knew to integrate both ‘schools’. Like Rudi Fuchs in Eindhoven, or Johannes Gachnang in Bern, who died recently. They had no problems mixing shows of Brouwn, Long, Judd or Andre and shows of Baselitz, Byars, Immendorff or Penck. So one day I said to myself: ‘Why not show Penck? Or Byars? They are interesting artists!’ That became important to me, also as a small act of emancipation.