VoCA went to the opening of collector Harald Falckenberg’s newly renovated private museum in Hamburg last week. The space opened with an exhibition of works – a retrospective – of the late American artist Paul Thek. The exhibition, titled Paul Thek in the Context of Today’s Contemporary Art, is on view at the Sammlung Falckenberg from 31 May to 14 September 2008.

Paul Thek, by Peter Hujar. Image: denniscooper-theweakerlings.blogspot.com

“Paul who?” you ask.

Paul Thek is well-known in Germany but little known in America, where he died of AIDS at age 55 in 1988. He was well-enough known, though to Susan Sontag, whose Against Interpretation from 1962, was dedicated to him.

The retrospective covered his excellent work from the 1960s through the weaker pieces of the 80s, but best were his ‘Relics’, sculptures of dismembered, occasionally bejeweled body parts encased in florescent Plexiglas boxes. He also made some unusual chair sculptures and various pieces in which he dealt with the subject of his own death.

Paul Thek, Arm, 1967. Image: denniscooper-theweakerlings.blogspot.com

From the exhibition catalogue: “The mold castings, also those of his own body parts, wax replicas of human tissue, hair, teeth, and bones in Plexiglas cases, which he produced between 1964 and 1967 as »Technological Reliquaries,« in their mixture of desire and repulsion, decay and pathos, held up the truth of the body to the world of commodities and the transfiguration of the everyday, as well as the idealization and dramatization of corporative minimal art.”

Paul Thek, from the series The Technological Reliquaries, late ’60s. Image: denniscooper-theweakerlings.blogspot.com

His installations were astounding. Represented in this show mainly by large photographs, they often involved entire rooms. One wonders if they would even be allowed today – his Ark, Pyramid, Easter included a wooden plank leading to a giant pyramid, above a landscape of sand studded with lit candles - a giant fire hazard, surely.

Paul Thek, installation view “Ark, Pyramid, Easter - a visiting group show”, Museum of Art Lucerne, 1973.
Image: ptproject.net

VoCA took photographs of the works - stay tuned for the images shortly.

Vitrines were filled with his fascinating notes and documentation. A big influence, it seems was the artist Albrecht Durer. In fact, Thek made a series of etchings in homage to the famous artist.

The exhibition was also partly given over to contemporary artists whose work Falckenberg felt bore a relationship to Thek’s work. There was work by several of VoCA’s favorite artists, including Vito Acconci, Franz Ackermann, John Bock, Sophie Calle, Guy Debord, Jimmie Durham, Thomas Hirschhorn, Mike Kelley, William Pope L., Martha Rosler, Gregor Schneider and others.

There was also a General Idea room complete with the pill sculptures and a poodle painting and three self-portraits of the artists as babies.

General Idea, Playing Doctor, 1993

AA Bronson, who was wandering around the opening, told us that he was pleased with the installation, given that there was so much work to be squeezed into a relatively tight space.

There were rumors that the Thek exhibition, which debuted at the ZKM in Karlsruhe in December, would travel, perhaps to Spain.

For more information, please click HERE and HERE.

Keep an eye out for my upcoming review of the exhibition in the September issue of Art Review magazine.

Here are some of VoCA images from the Falckenberg exhibition. Click on thumbnails to enlarge: