the webspace of Markus Schmoelz

PASTAMASTA MARKUS SCHMOELZ

Born 1953 in Munich, studies of ancient and new languages, art history, cultural anthropology, photography.
Work as translator, interpreter, photographer; co-founder of the Spotnik Studio of Photography, Munich.
As of late 1970s designing and publishing fanzines, calendars, buttons and stickers.
Early 1980s: founding of the mail-art group Bizarr, doing unique copies and “throw-away art” (in order to deconstruct the meaning of original piece of art).
Influenced by the visual culture prevailing at the time: punk art, New Wave, graffiti and street art, new ways of typographing and Xerox printing.
From 1983 on change to producing multiples which were made under the condition that no father of those multiples shall exist and the multiples together form the original (“democratic art”).

This eventually led to a unique card/art publishing company, “Bizarrverlag”, co-founded by Sissa Marquardt.
Production of audio art (“Audio Tours”, taped street sounds) and video art (“Extreme Art”), editing of books and most of all publishing postcards.
From 1985 on fascination with OP Art and Moiree art eventually resulted in the creation of the famous interactive, psychedelic Turning Cards, which have continuously been developed and refined ever since.

From 1986 on publishing of other artists’ work on postcards and calendars, among them artists such as Pierre & Gilles, Jim Avignon, Kazuko Miyamoto, Charles Gatewood, Kenneth Anger, Irwing Klaw, Shag, to name a few.

From 1988 on collaboration with New-York-based Gallery 128 owned and curated by Kazuko Miyamoto.

The work was included in opening credits for movies, theater coulisse, used for interior design of museum gift shops, flyers, advertisments and on record sleeves.

The Turning Cards, which include precise geometrical patterns like in Op Art and Minimal Art, but contain complex, kinetic ornaments, making the cards seem almost magical when spun by hand, are meanwhile sold in museum stores all over the world. The Turning Cards are sold in museum stores worldwide such as MOMA PS1, NYC, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Saatchi Gallery, London, Deutsches Museum, München, Gropius Bau, Berlin, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Smithsonian, Washington, Red Dot Designmuseum, Singapore, Palais du Tokyo, Paris, Museum Tinguely, Basel, Vasarely Museum, Budapest, Victoria&Albert Museum, London, National Museum of Mathematics, NYC, Caixa Forum, Barcelona, Kunsthalle Würth, Künzelsau, Fundacao EDP, Lisbon, Eye Filmmuseum, ch Amsterdam, On Sundays Museum, Tokyo, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Fondation Vasarely, Aix-en-Provence, Museum Ritter, Waldenbruch, Museum Escher, Den Haag, MMKK, Klagenfurt, Kunstkraftwerk Leipzig, MUMOK, Wien, Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt, to name a few.

Kazuko Miyamoto, artist and curator/owner Gallery 128, NYC:
„His work sits squarely on the fence between love for Pop-Art, Op-Art and a darker satire, that takes one out of comfortable dreams.“

In an interview with German design magazin form&zweck (issue 45/1992):
Editor-in-chief Angelika Petruschat:
So you would say, your cards are the visual carrier of messages?
MS: No, the card is the message

Juergen Kolbe, head of cultural division of the City of Munich and curator on the occasion of EXPANDED PHOTOGRAPHY show at Lothringer 13 gallery in 1984:
Markus Schmoelz has a uniquely humorous and almost ruthlessly direct mode of manipulating photography in order to make them part of his artistic universe. In no way does he hide the manipulation, rejecting all kind of perfection as vain in correspondence with his creed: „If I want a person on my photo to wear a red shit, I colour it red.“

Excerpt from an article on Bizarr by Ialian journalist Piermario Boldoni for Frigidaire magazine (4/2002):

In 1982 writer Sissa Marquardt and photographer Markus Schmölz founded BIZARR as an art project without clearly defined purpose and without limitations as to style or contents of their art. I have known them from the very beginning of BIZARR, the days of their first publication "GRAFFITI". Being a couple their "art lives" and private lives became unseparable from each other and out of a typical 80s lifestyle all kinds of typical 80s art products such as photocopied magazines, neon-coloured prints and unique mail art were born. I remember once receiving a slice of very old salami with a stamp sticked on it, and at another occasion artist's sperm sealed in an transparent plastic envelope. In 1983, they founded BIZARR VERLAG, and began creating multiples rather than single pieces, 20-50 copies of what they called "Throwaway Art" (art produced really fast, consumed likewise and then done away with). The same year they had their first major exhibition in Munich ("Expanded Photography") which showed photocopies of their art work, crudely painted over with bright markers in order to deconstruct the meaning of an "original piece of art". Their approach was that nothing should have a lasting value and instead of doing one piece worth say 1000 dollars it is more "democratic" to do 1000 copies of this piece worth 1 dollar each under the self-imposed condition that no single "original" piece must exist, but all 1000 pieces make up the original. No wonder postcards became their number one medium. At their 1985 exhibition in Amsterdam ("Postc'Art") they showed huge installations made of innumerable postcards, which they gave away after the show, much to the grievance of the gallery owner.
In 1986 they started publishing other artists' work as well. In 1987 BIZARR VERLAG began publishing international video art, a rather new medium at the time, still featuring the concept of throwaway art. "The less money the artist had the more creativity he needed" recalls Markus, "later on in many cases expensive equipment started ruling creativity, that was then we quit" after having published about 30 tapes, many of artists originating from the mailart scene.
In the 90s BIZARR developed into Germany's most innovative publishing house of contemporary postcards featuring artists such as Pierre & Gilles, Jim Avignon, Charles Gatewood, Kenneth Anger, Irwing Klaw, Shag, to name a few.
However they never neglected their own artwork and about half of what is published is BIZARR's own work. Based on former mail-art background they took the medium of postcards to extremes. Their work includes postcards filled with coloured liquids, postcards made of specially-produced laser silk, moiré postcards consisting of paper and plastic, postcards made of all kinds of fake furs and other textiles, postcards made of engraved metal sheets, and so on.

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