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

The Enemy of Capital, Wladimir I. Lenin, 1917, Marble Palace, Saint Petersburg

The Marble Time, HA Schult, 1994,
Marble Palace, Saint Petersburg,
Collection The State Russian Museum

The Marble Time, HA Schult, 1994,
Collection The State Russian Museum,
Saint Petersburg

Crash, 1977documenta 6, New York, Kassel

Crash
New York – documenta 6, 1977

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

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

Der Krieg, midnight Palace Square, Saint Petersburg, 1994

Der Krieg, 10:00 p. m. Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, 1994

Der Krieg, 4:00 p. m. Times Square, New York, N. Y., 1994

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