HA Schult, Art is Life

Landmarks

Marble Time, Saint Petersburg, 1994 HA Schult, Alexander D. Borovsky, Oleg Tepsov,
Anatoly Belkin

We got used to the fact that modern art used less traditional materials, including the most dissimilar objects in the sphere of art – HA Schult is particularly radical. He does not only make real spaces and the products of modern technology his artistic instruments, but, for the last 25 years, he has used the mass media in a way not previously known in the art world and he integrates it into the structure of the artistic creative process.

Like a traditional artist uses brushes, colors and canvas, H A Schult relates to the emotions, expectancy, fears and even superstitions of his mass media audience. In making all of these materials for his actions, he releases a certain displacement.

His actions are not in the least an artistic provocation with the aim of disturbing the artistic peace like “boxing public tastes round the ears” - like it is done by so many artists today – no, HA Schult is “the artistic agent provocateur with moral standards”.

How does he achieve artistic provocation and develop that particular spark that triggers the chain reaction and integrates the mass media and the mass audience within a homogeneous system? I believe that one of the most important instruments of “the maker” H A Schult is the way he plays with different contexts. These contexts produce the raw materials for the artist: in his hands a particular context becomes sculptural, workable and malleable and is made into a new unknown “thing world” like clay in a sculptor’s hand.

The artist works with the different contexts – from local to geological – in 1985 he transported the Brandenburg Gate from Berlin to New York – or from a social to a cultural-historical context. It is not necessary to distinguish or to locate these contexts: the artist understands them as homogeneous material for constant manipulation. It is the clashing of the contexts, their mutual force of attraction and rejection that has the effect of artistic provocation and includes the important quality of an unexpected and paradoxical dissolving of the well-known. In the 1920’s the Russian formalists found the appropriate expression, namely: “alienation”. Alexander D. Borovsky, 1994

Crash. A monument for USA by HA Schult
June 25, 1977, Staten Island, N.Y., Kassel, documenta 6
First Satellite transmission in art, New York – Kassel

Crash, 1977documenta 6, New York, Kassel

Now, 1983
Twin Towers, Washington Street
5:30 a.m.

9/11
Tribeca, 10:00 a. m.

Now, 1983
Hotel Chelsea, New York, N.Y.

Now, 1983
Hotel Chelsea, Street Poem

Now, 1983
Harlem Firehouse

Now, 1983
Firehouse Dinner

Firehouse Dinner
Michael Ringier, Father Peter Jacobs

Harlem Firehouse
Dieter Schulz, Firemen Captain, Elke Koska

Now, 1983
Tenor under the Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Now, 1983
Sound of the Bridge, The Voice of Art

Now, 1983
Subway

Now, 1983
Canal Street

Now, 1983
West Broadway

Now, 1983
Wooster Street

Now, 1983
Art Collector

Now, 1983
Sweeney Building, Brooklyn

Sweeney Building
Art People

Sweeney Building
Joanne and Howard E. Hassler

Sweeney Building
Art People

Sweeney Building
Street Art

Washington Street, New York, N. Y.
Street Art

Now, 1983
Dorothy and Herbert Vogel
A Piece of Art

Now, 1983
Twin Towers,
Pope’s Car

Now, 1983
Trash Cathedral

Now, 1983
Trash Symphony

Now, 1983
Overdose New York

New York is Berlin, 1985The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
New York, N. Y.

New York is Berlin, 1985
Angst

New York is Berlin, 1985
Brandenburg Gate

Brandenburg Gate
Art People

Satellite Dialogue New York – Berlin
Elke Koska, Father Peter Jacobs, Spencer Adkins, Kevin Mc Cutcheon, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Opera

New York is Berlin, Elke Koska, Thomas M. Messer
3:45 p.m., Exchange Place, New York, N. Y., 1985

New York is Berlin, 9:45 p. m. Potsdamer Platz, Berlin West, 1985

Satellite Dialogue Berlin – New York
HA Schult, Rainer Hildebrandt, William Pell, Jan Klibonoff, Mauermuseum –Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, Deutsche Oper Berlin

New York is Berlin, 1985
Twin Towers, Berlin Wall

New York is Berlin, 1985
Empire State Building, Skyscraper Bus

Jetzt! Zeit…, 1980
Cologne Cathedral, Jetzt Zeit Bus

Jetzt Zeit Bus
Cologne – Xanten

Jetzt Zeit Bus
Art People

Moving Garden
Art People

Living Garden
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Living Garden
Art People

Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 1980
HA Schult, Volker Hauff, Ron Sommer

Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 1980
Venezia Vive, 1976, Installation

Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 1980
Situation Schackstraße, 1969, Installation

Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 1980
Crash, 1977, Video Wall

Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 1980
Crash, 1977, photographs by Harry Shunk

Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 1980
The World is a Box

Jetzt Zeit Bus
HA Schult, 1980

Jetzt Zeit Bus
On the Road

Jetzt! Zeit…
Roman Amphitheatre Xanten

Ruhr-Tour, 1978
Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund

Museum am Ostwall, 1978
Ruhr Tableau

Ruhr District, 1978
Moving Garden

Ruhr-Tour, 1978
Factory Sculpture

City Schrebergarten
Art People

City Schrebergarten
Ueli Fuchser, A Piece of Art

Ruhr-Tour, 1978
Media House

Ruhr-Tour, 1978
Parkstadion Gelsenkirchen
Der Flug der Worte ins Revier…

Ruhr-Tour, 1978
Musiktheater im Revier, Gelsenkirchen
Das Stück heißt die Arbeit, sein Autor ist die Zeit…

Der Krieg, midnight Palace Square, Saint Petersburg, 1994

Der Krieg, 1994
The State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, N. Y.
Mauermuseum – Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin