From sculptor to conceptual artist: The Von der Heydt Museum is honouring Guido Jendritzko (1925 Kirchhain/Niederlausitz – 2009 Wuppertal) with an exhibition on the occasion of his 100th birthday. It provides an insight into the extensive and diverse work of the artist, who was born in Brandenburg and trained in Berlin, and who participated in documenta. It ranges from early sculptures and graphic works to his action and performance art of the 1970s and photographic works of the 1980s to his late serial works.
The exhibition illustrates how Jendritzko radically changed his working methods in the early 1970s. He created the genre of ‘intimate performance’, which revolved around the relationship between men and women. From the 1980s onwards, Jendritzko concentrated on photography. Large-scale photo installations explore the relationship between humans and their environment.
Jendritzko developed from a classical abstract sculptor into a concept artist with an interest in contemporary issues and cultural politics. At the end of the 1960s, he was actively involved in the discussions in Wuppertal about the construction of a new museum. This is also part of his artistic practice.
Today, eight sculptures, numerous ink drawings and an extensive collection of photographic works belong to the collection of the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal, where he lived from 1964 and taught at the Werkkunstschule. The exhibition is complemented by numerous works from his estate that have not yet been on display.
Some of his works are in museums, others in public spaces. One of Jendritzko's best-known works in Wuppertal is his two-metre-high bronze sculpture in front of a primary school. It is one of three sculptures he exhibited at documenta II in Kassel in 1959. Jendritzko studied at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin from 1950 to 1956 and was a master student of Karl Hartung. In 1957, he received a scholarship from the ‘Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft’ (Cultural Circle of German Business), and was awarded the Villa Romana Prize in 1960. Until 1990, he taught as a professor of free sculpture at the Werkkunstschule Wuppertal, which became part of the Gesamthochschule Wuppertal in 1972 and later the Bergische Universität.
