Movies and videos

The art my father cre­at­ed

Felic­i­tas Baumeis­ter remem­bers grow­ing up with the art of her father, Willi Baumeis­ter. When she was born in 1933, her father wrote in his diary: “… the child is nor­mal.” Oth­er­wise, lit­tle else was nor­mal that year. Baumeis­ter lost his pro­fes­sor­ship at the Städelschule in Frank­furt as a “degen­er­ate artist.” The young fam­i­ly moved to Stuttgart and a peri­od of inter­nal emi­gra­tion began.

Felic­i­tas grew up dur­ing this time, expe­ri­enc­ing the war, but above all the post-war peri­od, which brought her father great artis­tic recog­ni­tion once again. She remem­bers: her own child­hood with her painter father. The cre­ation of the book “Das Unbekan­nte in der Kun­st” (The Unknown in Art) dur­ing the war. She remem­bers the artists she met, such as Paul Klee, Joan Miró, Fer­nand Léger, and, of course, Oskar Schlem­mer. She remem­bers Baumeis­ter’s exhi­bi­tions in Paris and impor­tant col­lec­tors such as Ottomar Dom­nick. She leafs through fam­i­ly pho­to albums and Willi’s diary. Felic­i­tas brings unpub­lished let­ters and pho­tos, old news­pa­pers, draw­ings, and col­lages from the estate to light.

When her father died unex­pect­ed­ly in 1955, Felic­i­tas was just 22 years old. Togeth­er with her moth­er and sis­ter, she began to cat­a­logue Baumeis­ter’s work. This task became her life’s work. Cat­a­logues raison­nés were com­piled over many years, exhi­bi­tions were sup­port­ed, and the archive grew. An impor­tant step was tak­en in 2005 with the inte­gra­tion of the Baumeis­ter Archive into the Kun­st­mu­se­um Stuttgart.

Her father’s estate is now affil­i­at­ed with the muse­um and has become an eas­i­ly acces­si­ble research cen­tre. Felic­i­tas’s mem­o­ries are com­ment­ed on by Ulrike Groos (direc­tor of the Kun­st­mu­se­um Stuttgart), Peter Chamentsky (Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na), who con­duct­ed research in the Baumeis­ter Archive for many years, and Had­wig Goez, direc­tor of the Baumeis­ter Archive.

The pup­pet show “The Colour Guardian”

This pup­pet show was cre­at­ed in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with direc­tor and pup­peteer Drag­i­ca Ivanovic as part of the spe­cial exhi­bi­tion ‘In the Spot­light: Baumeis­ter as Stage Design­er’ at the Kun­st­mu­se­um Stuttgart in 2007, which dealt with the theme of the­atre and pre­sent­ed stage designs by the artist Willi Baumeis­ter.

The abstract motif of the late ‘Mon­taru’ paint­ings – a large black spot in the cen­tre, next to which small­er, bright­ly coloured shapes appear – served as the tem­plate for the piece. Baumeis­ter not only var­ied this motif in over 50 paint­ings, but also incor­po­rat­ed it into a stage design for the play ‘Kasper­le-Spiele für große Leute’ (Pup­pet Shows for Grown-ups), which was also shown in the spe­cial exhi­bi­tion. In the paint­ings, the artist plays with ever-chang­ing com­bi­na­tions of the black form with most­ly red, blue and yel­low pic­to­r­i­al ele­ments that float against a white back­ground and appear to be in motion. Fine black anten­nae, which feel their way out of the black form into the pic­ture plane, rein­force the impres­sion of dynamism. By mod­i­fy­ing forms and pro­por­tions, Baumeis­ter explores the cor­re­la­tion between colours and their respec­tive effects. The nar­ra­tive ele­ment of rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al paint­ing recedes in favour of a play of forces between autonomous pic­to­r­i­al ele­ments, in which the colours seem to com­pete for dom­i­nance. The theme of autonomous colours detached from the object was pre­sent­ed in a child-friend­ly way as a com­pe­ti­tion between colours.

Five char­ac­ters appear in the play: the colours red, blue, yel­low, black and the colour guardian Karl. Karl is a lov­able, slight­ly absent-mind­ed char­ac­ter who has been guard­ing Willi Baumeis­ter’s paint­ings and espe­cial­ly his colours for many years. By chang­ing their posi­tions and loca­tions, the colours in the pup­pet show demon­strate var­i­ous com­po­si­tion­al pos­si­bil­i­ties. They raise ques­tions that the painter him­self might have asked: How does the effect of the pic­ture change when the colours swap places? Which colour shines brighter against a black back­ground – red or blue? In this way, the cre­ative process is play­ful­ly illus­trat­ed in the pup­pet show.